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50 Years: Joyce Green, SP
(Sister Joyce Marie)
There is a quiet determination about Sister Joyce Green. As she moves around Portland with her cane, it is readily apparent that she is blind. Once you get to know her, it is just as apparent that the experience of blindness has enriched rather than defined her. She is eager to broaden her horizons and meet her commitments, traveling on foot, by city bus, lift, taxi, Greyhound bus, Amtrak or airplane.
 She was one of six children born to Mirene and Claude Green in a small town in Missouri where most of her family still lives. Her parents could tell right away that her vision was poor. She could see large print, bright colors and shadows, but she does not recall ever being able to recognize people.
By seventh grade, it was a struggle to read. Her sisters were a big help to her, and she developed a phenomenal memory for taking in information that got her through high school. She knew that she would need to develop alternative skills, so when the public school would not teach her to type, she taught herself.
In college, where she was a scholarship student, she used a tape recorder and paid readers. She later taught herself Braille.
After graduation, she worked for eight years as a correspondence secretary at a paper company in downtown St. Louis. She became a Catholic as an adult. When called to enter religious life, she was searching for a compatible religious community when she met Sisters Mary Christopher and Alice St. Hilaire, who were studying at St. Louis University. “I corresponded with the provincial, Mother Judith, and the rest is history,” Sister Joyce says with a broad smile.
She was a postulant at Mount St. Vincent, Seattle, and a novice at Providence Heights in Issaquah, Wash. She professed first vows in 1963 and took the name Sister Joyce Marie in religion, which later became her legal name.
Drawn to social work
Her first ministry was as a medical records transcriptionist, for two years at St. Joseph Hospital in Burbank, Calif., and four years at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Portland. She then received permission to change to a more people-oriented ministry and was drawn to the social work profession.
She served in social work at Providence Portland Medical Center (PPMC) from 1971 through 1990, with time out to earn her master’s degree in social work at St. Louis University. In 1990, Sister Joyce accepted the invitation to develop the mission Integration program at PPMC. She developed the mission medal program (a recognition of employees who model mission integration in their daily work), and she helped regionalize the mission program. One of her most valued contributions was starting a medication assistance program for the needy. This program serves hundreds of Providence patients.
Asked whether being blind has influenced her religious life, she responded, “I don’t think so.” Sister Joyce is deeply committed to helping blind people develop self confidence and alternative skills, necessary for success in mainstream society, and to teaching the sighted public what the blind can do. “The blind should be able to do what the sighted can do if they have the skills, and if the sighted are not biased and do not put up barriers.”
In June she completes her third two-year term on the board of the Oregon State Commission for the Blind, which provides vocational rehabilitation to blind Oregonians. She also has served for years on the board of the state affiliate of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), currently serving as its treasurer. The NFB is a large advocacy organization of blind people that addresses issues that keep the blind at a disadvantage. “There has been a lot of progress, I am glad to say. It is not easy for the sighted public to understand the everyday things that deny equal access to the blind.”
For years she also was on the board of Outreach Ministries, working to stabilize the lives of the would-be homeless in Portland.
European travels were life-changine
Sister Joyce retired from the medical center in 1997. The subsequent extended time traveling in Europe “changed my life big time.”
Another fondly remembered experience was attending the May 1980, dedication and blessing of the Mother Joseph statue in Washington, D.C. “It was a thrill to be there,” she said. Closer to home, she also was thrilled to participate in the Walk of the Heroines dedication on the campus of Portland State University in 2009.
“My life is not a big event thing; it is simple, day by day,” Sister Joyce explained. “Lunch or coffee or an ice cream cone with friends spices things up.” Still, she is a country girl who admits to occasionally feeling trapped or imprisoned by the city. When that happens, a couple of days at the beach with a friend or just a walk down a country road is refreshing. She is energized by outdoor activity and exercise, reading historical fiction, playing cards, or listening to music.
“I seldom get really excited about anything,” she said, but she owned that she is looking forward to her local community’s celebration of her Jubilee, and her annual home visit to Missouri in the fall.
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