Formidable Tri-Cities community volunteer of 70-plus years dies
Joyce Kerr, the 2016 Kennewick Woman of the Year who was at the heart of Tri-Cities volunteer community for decades, has died at 94.
Kerr moved to Kennewick in 1949 with her late husband, Dr. Raymond Kerr who died in 1994.
She had trained to be a nurse, and she assisted her husband in running his Kennewick medical practice for years. But she also immersed herself in the community through service and dedication to her church.
While raising their six children, she was often a leader in the schools’ parent-teacher groups, volunteering in classrooms and lending a hand for school activities.
Kerr served as a guardian ad litem for children in state custody and was a longtime volunteer for Team Read — a one-on-one tutoring program for elementary students through the Children’s Reading Foundation of the Mid-Columbia, which her daughter Nancy co-founded in 1996.
“She was really good with all kinds of kids — not just small kids, but teens. She could relate to anybody,” said Steve Jones, who has been married to Kerr’s daughter Patricia for 47 years.
She recently was able to see her dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren after one of her daughters drove her mother around town where the kids held up their drawings and everyone waved from their yards.
Kerr also joined efforts to help get Kennewick’s first hospital and helped with opening the Tri-Cities Cancer Center in 1994.
She was an accomplished seamstress and donated many quilts to charities. She continued using her skills throughout her life, and sewed masks for Chaplaincy Health Care early in the COVID pandemic.
But most of all, her kindness is what she will be missed for, Jones said.
“She got along really well with everyone. There wasn’t a single person she ticked off. She always was kind and never had a bad word to say about anyone,” Jones said. “They say the nice ones die young and bad ones live forever, but that wasn’t the case with her.”
A family-only service is planned on Saturday, Feb. 6, at 10 a.m. The service will be streamed for public viewing, although details have not been finalized. Hillcrest Funerals and Cremation is in charge of arrangements.