MATTHEWS Joyce Anne

Mary Youlden
Authored by Mary Youlden
Posted Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - 10:14am

Joyce Matthews from Pendeen in West Cornwall passed away peacefully at her home in Exeter on 1 April 2014 at the age of 91.

The daughter of John and Alice Roberts and sister of Rowenna, Madge and John, she grew up in Pendeen before training in London and Windsor during the Second World War, initially at Norlands and then at Great Ormond Street, Queen Charlotte and King Edward VII hospitals during which she won the Gold Medal as the best nursing student. Her nursing career then took her to South Africa and North Rhodesia (now Zambia) where she became Matron of the Anglo American mining group’s principal hospital on the Copperbelt. 

After marrying George Matthews, an Electrical Engineer, in 1975 they returned to Zambia for a short while and then retired to Exeter where she lived very happily for almost 37 years.

Her funeral will be held on Monday, 14 April at 2.45pm in St Peter’s Chapel at the Exeter & Devon Crematorium, Topsham Road, Exeter EX2 6EU.

No flowers but donations in her memory can be made to the RNLI Penlee Lifeboat Station in Newlyn, Cornwall. All enquiries to LeRoy Funerals, 01392 255535

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