Joyce Fay Lockhart Wildenthal

June 7, 1937 - Jan. 7, 2025

Joyce Fay Lockhart Wildenthal (1937–2025) Joyce Fay Lockhart Wildenthal, 87, died peacefully asleep in her rural home near Williamston, Michigan, on January 7, 2025. She was in declining health for many years. She had a long career as a biological laboratory technician and manager at Michigan State University (MSU) in East Lansing and a lifelong love for science. Joyce was an excellent student who graduated third in her 1955 Alpine High School class. She spent the first twenty years of her life in Alpine, a small town in the Big Bend region of west Texas. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in 1959 from the University of Texas in Austin, while also taking some classes at Sul Ross State College (now University) in Alpine. She received her Master of Arts in Zoology in 1963 from the University of Kansas, focusing on ornithology, and her Master of Science in Resource Development in 1989 from MSU. Her first master’s thesis, Structure in Primary Song of the Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) was published in the scientific journal The Auk in 1965. In word and deed, Joyce supported civil rights and equal treatment for people of all races and creeds. As a high school senior, in solidarity with a Black Latina friend and classmate, she and other students refused racially segregated housing at a Girls State meeting until the adult organizers allowed their classmate to stay with them. She refused to join a university sorority to which she was invited when she learned it excluded Jewish and non-White students. She supported women’s equality, reproductive freedom, and — far in advance of prevailing views — equal treatment of all people without regard to sexual or gender identity. She became a political progressive and a strong supporter of the Democratic Party. During Joyce’s career at MSU in medical research and soil microbiology, for more than thirty years, she found great satisfaction working with graduate students and scientists from around the world. For many, she was their introduction to American life and culture. She helped them find housing and child care, helped them navigate bureaucracies, and even provided emergency supplies of pots, pans, and dishes. Her fascination for science was combined with a deep love for the beauty of nature, birdwatching, organic gardening, camping, swimming, and hiking. She was committed to conservation of a sustainable environment. She loved horses, dogs, cats, and other animals. Family members laughingly recall that as a young girl she liked to pretend she was a horse. She inspired similar love of animals, plants, and nature in her children, grandchildren, and others. Joyce was married (1957–76) to Bryan Hobson Wildenthal (1937–2021), whom she met at Alpine High School and with whom she had three children. They eventually settled in Michigan, later divorced, and remained friends. She also had a relationship with a later life partner until his death and a continuing loving relationship with his children. Joyce loved music from an early age, playing piano and flute and developing a particular talent for singing. This fueled her scientific fascination with bird songs. She once sang the title role in a community production of the opera Carmen. For many years, she enjoyed singing with the Steiner Chorale, a vocal ensemble in the Lansing area of Michigan. While attending Unitarian Universalist (UU) congregations in several states, she especially enjoyed the musical celebrations and sang in one UU choir. She loved books, plays, and theatre, including the works attributed to the author known as “Shakespeare.” In the summer of 1956 in Alpine, she and Hobson acted together in a college production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, both in drag: she as King Oberon and he playing Thisbe in the “play within a play.” Joyce’s mother, Lora Bell Kunze Lockhart (1909–98), born in Minnesota, was a musician and homemaker deeply involved in community service. Her father, William Edgar “Bill” Lockhart Jr., M.D. (1908–87), born in Texas, was a physician for more than fifty years who also served as a local elected official and, during World War II, in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. Their civic, medical, musical, and intellectual activities and interests were a profound influence on Joyce. She was also very close to her maternal grandparents, Gus and Maude Kunze, who lived with them for most of Joyce’s childhood and deeply influenced her outlook on life. Joyce’s parents arrived in Alpine in 1936. On June 7, 1937, she was born in a hospital in San Antonio, since there was then no maternity hospital in Alpine. Her father opened the Lockhart Clinic-Hospital in 1946, which later became his medical clinic and the family residence. Joyce returned to visit there as often as she could for the rest of her life. Joyce became very interested in genealogy, researching her Scottish (Lockhart and McCutcheon) ancestry and the German (Wildenthal) ancestry of her children. A highlight of her retirement years was attending the 2005 joint meeting in Scotland of the American and Scottish Lockhart Clan societies with her sister Mary Bell, son Bryan, and childhood friend Joanna Cowell. Joyce was a beloved matriarch and friend to countless people connected by genes, marriage, or simply love. She is survived by her daughter Rebecca Ann “Becky” Wildenthal (primary caregiver for the last fourteen years); son Bryan Hobson Wildenthal II (and husband Ashish); daughter Lora Joyce Wildenthal (and husband Carl); sisters Lora Lee “Lolly” Lockhart and Mary Bell Lockhart; grandson James Hewson Jr. (and wife Alley); grandson Justin Hewson (and wife Lara); granddaughter Vera Caldwell; four great-grandchildren; niece Shelly Beaird Wright (and husband David), nephew Taylor Woodruff (and wife Nichole), niece Amy Beaird, and many more beloved family members and friends, including her good friend Penny Tiedgen (who provided indispensable caregiving help for the last twelve years). She was predeceased by her brother William Edgar “Bill” Lockhart III (1943–2007). Joyce’s children believe she would be honored best by sharing memories of her life, helping others and “paying forward” whatever good fortune you have, being thoughtful and involved in civic life, and (as the saying goes) “practicing random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.”