Dorothy Joyce Janet McIntyre (née Petterson) was born on 24 July 1924 in Auckland, on her mother’s birthday. She has 100 years of life experience behind her, influenced by both her family and world events.

Son Kevin says these events shaped her outlook on life, influenced her upbringing and her ability to survive the events that came her way.

He says she is a survivor of her time and that she has characteristics that are still present today.

Joyce lived in an orphanage for nine years while her parents survived the Depression. She attended high school in Auckland and Wellington before going to Hamilton in 1942 to train as a nurse.

There she treated a soldier, Jim McIntyre, who had been wounded in Crete. They fell in love and were married in 1945, on her 21st birthday.

After a short period in Raglan, the couple moved to Woodville, where Jim was able to receive treatment for dermatitis. They raised a daughter, Carol, and two sons, Kevin and Graeme, and became deeply involved in the Woodville community. They rented and bought a new state house at 29 Fox St, where Joyce still lives.

Jim worked various jobs at the post office and volunteered as an ambulance driver. Joyce teamed up with him and her father, while her mother looked after the children.

During this period Joyce began to contribute to the community, joining what would later become the Girl Guides and the Crippled Children Society. She also became a founding member of the Tararua College Parent Teacher Committee in 1960 when the school opened and operated for 10 years.

In 1986 Joyce was elected as a Woodville Borough Council delegate to the Dannevirke Hospital Board. She was subsequently elected to the Woodville Community Board in 1989.

It was a busy and rewarding life and the McIntyres also cared for many other children in their home when local people needed help, and for a number of years they provided shelter for other adults, including Jim’s father, when they needed temporary accommodation.

Joyce used her nursing skills to serve the community, often on call at Woodville Maternity Hospital and making other contributions to Woodville’s medical well-being.

She was instrumental in attracting both Dr Sam Wilson to settle in the district in 1998 and Dr David Adams to open his pharmacy there, and was a determined force in the long battle to establish the Woodville Ambulance Rooms.

In February 1992, Joyce was deeply shocked by the death of her husband Jim, but she continued to be committed to the Woodville community.

In 2001 she joined the board of Waireka Rest Home, where she served for six years. From 1997 to 2001 she was on the board of St John’s Ambulance Area in Dannevirke and from 1997 to 2000 she drove outpatients in Palmerston North.

Joyce made sure that she enjoyed herself in these later years. She visited the South Island with family, went on caravan trips to places like Lake Ferry and Foxton, flew in a hot air balloon, attended a Cliff Richard Mission Concert, kayaked in the Manawatū Gorge and visited the North Island for her 80th birthday, to name but a few.

Her 90th birthday was made even more special when she was presented with the District of Tararua Civic Honour for Community Service by Mayor Roly Ellis at a gathering in the Woodville School Hall, surrounded by all her friends of 90 years.

She continues to attend all public events, such as the commemoration of King Charles’ coronation at Woodville, and was escorted across the new Manawatū-Tararua highway in December 2023.

Now that Kevin and his wife Joan live in Woodville, Joyce is well cared for, although Kevin would say it was “more of a motherly care for us”.