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Obituary for Joyce W. Orbine

Joyce W.  Orbine
PEARL RIVER – Joyce Wootton Orbine passed away peacefully on March 21, with her adoring family at her side. Joyce was born on January 31, 1933 to Robert and Mildred Wootton, and spent her formative years in Nyack, N.Y., where she earned valedictorian honors at Nyack High School while participating in cheerleading, volleyball, and basketball.

Joyce was an honors student of Phi Beta Kappa distinction at Douglass College, where she graduated with a degree in Spanish/education, before she earned her master’s degree in Spanish at Iona College. She had met her future husband Jack Orbine of Blandburg, Pa. in Nyack, and the two would marry in 1956 and settle in Nanuet. They moved to South Nyack and, in 1969, to Pearl River, where they raised their daughters, Tracey and Pamela, and lived for more than half a century in a family environment shaped by nurturing and love.

A full-time Spanish and Latin teacher at Suffern High School, Joyce would become a substitute in the Nyack and Pearl River districts while raising her daughters. In 1983, she started as a full-time teacher again at Clarkstown North High School, where she remained for 15 years and was described in one newspaper account as “a bedrock of professionalism.” Students at all schools remembered her as fiercely devoted and exceedingly fair.

Joyce was most fond of reading, planting her flowers, playing board games, conquering crossword puzzles, and watching and attending baseball games; she was, at different stages of her life, a passionate fan of the Yankees, Pirates, and Mets. Her partnership with her husband and best friend, Jack, served as a model for countless married couples who knew them. Joyce loved to host family for Thanksgiving and Christmas, to vacation and dine on the water, and to play volleyball on the beach with her husband and daughters on their cherished summer trips to Point Sebago in Maine, where they met dear lifelong friends. Joyce was a world traveler who made stops in Russia, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and France, not to mention the casinos of Las Vegas and Atlantic City. She was known by all for her relentless energy, for her inability to sit idly in front of the TV between the urgent tasks of the day.

As a teacher, Joyce worked on grading homework and preparing lessons every weeknight until bedtime, sometimes falling asleep with her papers in her lap in her downstairs rec room. As a mother and provider, she helped build the kind of idyllic childhood for her daughters that left them blissfully unaware of the family’s budget constraints. Tracey and Pamela were the same indomitable advocates for their mother in her final months that she was for them over six decades.

Joyce was predeceased by her sister Doris in 2016. She is survived by her husband of more than 64 years, Jack, of Pearl River; her daughter Tracey O’Connor (Ian) of River Vale, N.J.; and her daughter Pamela Curry (Jack) of River Vale, N.J.; and her loving grandson Kyle O’Connor of Hoboken, N.J., with whom she shared a special 25-year relationship. She is also survived by her niece Cynthia Sheridan (Scott Siegler) and her nephew Mike Sheridan.

Visitation will be Thursday, March 25th, 4-8 p.m., at Hannemann Funeral Home on 88 South Broadway in Nyack, N.Y. A Funeral Service will be held on Friday at 10 AM at the funeral home. Interment will follow at Oak Hill Cemetery in Nyack, NY Donations may be made in Joyce’s memory to the American Macular Degeneration Foundation at www.macular.org .
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