Memorial Service Program
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Proverbs 31:10 – 12, 27-28, 31 (KJV)<br />
10<br />
Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. 11 The heart of her<br />
husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. 12 She will do<br />
him good and not evil all the days of her life. 27 She looketh well to the ways of her<br />
household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. 28 Her children arise up, and call her<br />
blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. 31 Give her of the fruit of her hands; and<br />
let her own works praise her in the gates.<br />
Order of <strong>Service</strong><br />
Celebrating the Life<br />
of<br />
Joyce Guess<br />
July 21, 1935 - June 6, 2017<br />
Musical Selection<br />
Opening Prayer<br />
Scripture Reading<br />
Proverbs 31:10 – 12, 27-28, 31<br />
Acknowledgements<br />
Tributes<br />
Harold Guess, Sr.<br />
Carey Guess, Sr.<br />
Andre Kimo Stone Guess<br />
Duanne Hawkins-Cooper<br />
Paige Jordan<br />
Malia Leilani Gibson<br />
Video Presentation<br />
Musical Selection<br />
Obituary Reading<br />
Closing Prayer<br />
<strong>Service</strong><br />
Saturday, June 17, 2017, 3:00 pm<br />
Central High School Auditorium<br />
1130 West Chestnut Street<br />
Louisville, KY
Obituary<br />
Joyce Stone Guess was born to Blanche Horner and Alexander Stone on the Kalaupapa<br />
leper colony on the Molakai Island in Hawaii on July 21, 1935. She was raised in Honolulu<br />
by her maternal aunt, Rose Horner.<br />
She was born with an innate sense of fairness and equity and had the fiery single minded<br />
spirit that was necessary to bring that sentiment to an unfair and unjust world. At 14 she<br />
became the first female to win the Star Bulletin’s monthly trophy for newspaper delivery.<br />
That same year she was also recognized in the paper as one who could “hold up her end<br />
of whatever is going on, whether it’s work or play”.<br />
A few years later Joyce began to work as a domestic for naval officers on Ford Island. It<br />
was there where she found her passion and purpose as well as her partner. As part of<br />
her duties, she cared for the children of the families for which she worked. There was<br />
such mutual admiration and love that when one family had to leave to go back to the<br />
mainland, both Joyce and their children cried.<br />
Those tears of sadness would eventually turn to tears of Joy when she met her future<br />
husband, Harold Guess on Ford Island in 1953. After a year of courtship they were married<br />
in 1954. In 1955 the newlywed couple returned to Harold’s hometown of Louisville,<br />
Kentucky and the Smoketown neighborhood.<br />
Joyce was a stranger in a strange land and Smoketown would forever be changed upon<br />
her arrival. She and Harold spent the next 56 years in the neighborhood, most of them at<br />
Harold’s childhood home at 926 South Jackson until the house was destroyed by fire in<br />
2011. They raised their five children several grandchildren and great-grandchildren there<br />
and beginning in the 1970’s Joyce began the next phase of her passion and purpose —<br />
babysitting.<br />
Joyce opened her house to whomever needed a loving, caring and disciplined environment<br />
for their children. She provided care for scores of children over the past 40 + years<br />
and was an invaluable resource to parents and a surrogate “meemaw” to their children.<br />
After the fire in 2011, Joyce and Harold moved in with their grandchild Val Johnson, Jr.<br />
and for the last six years she basked in the glow of the love of the people whom she<br />
poured herself into over the course of her life. She was truly blessed to have discovered<br />
her purpose, and passion of caring for children and also her partner in Harold Guess.<br />
She was hospitalized one day after their 63rd wedding anniversary and transitioned one<br />
week later on June 6, 2017 at noon.<br />
Along with Harold she is survived by her five children, Harold, Jr. (Diane), Mary Kenzer<br />
(Antonio), Daniel (Kelley), Chet (Lindsay), Andre (Cheryl), 18 grandchildren and 15 greatgrandchildren,<br />
her sister Betty Paresa and a host of nieces and nephews in Hawaii.