Joyce Hinton, a retired nurse whose work and volunteer activities touched people in four states, died Wednesday of a heart attack at her home in Columbia. She was 90.
Mrs. Hinton's commitment to helping others began in Florida in 1926, when she came to the aid of hurricane victims as a Red Cross volunteer. Her dedication was still evident two weeks ago at Vantage House Retirement Community in Columbia, where she read to the visually impaired.
"She helped so many people and lived a very rich life," said her son-in-law, Frank Westbrook of Columbia.
In 1968, she retired from Rex Hospital in Raleigh, N.C., where she spent 14 years as a nurse and surgical nursing instructor. She returned two years later to help establish the hospital's first day care center. In 1966 and 1970, she was named Nurse of the Year in Raleigh.
Her volunteer work for the Red Cross continued throughout her life, as did her work helping the blind. She started helping the blind in the 1950s after being hospitalized with an eye disease that nearly robbed her of her sight. "She promised the Lord that if he would spare her vision, she would help others who were visually impaired," Mr. Westbrook said.
As a volunteer for the Foreign Born Information and Referral Network in Howard County, she helped foreigners and refugees learn English and find jobs.
She also was active in Senior Entertainment and Arts Ticket Services (SEATS), a Columbia group that provided the elderly with free and discounted tickets to cultural events.
Born Joyce Long in Glen St. Mary, Fla., she was reared and educated near Titusville, Fla. After graduating from the Orange Memorial School of Nursing in Orlando, Fla., she worked at hospitals in Orlando and in St. Augustine and Tampa, Fla. She worked at what then was Mount Montefiori Hospital in New York.
She met Joseph P. Hinton in the early 1930s in Tampa. They married in 1935. Mr. Hinton died in 1980.
In 1978, they moved to Columbia from Raleigh. Earlier, the Hintons lived in Norfolk, Va., where Mrs. Hinton had been a volunteer and president of the local garden club.
She was a former vice president of the Howard County chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons.
She enjoyed playing bridge and taught others to play at the Florence Bain Senior Center in Columbia.
In addition to her son-in-law, she is survived by a daughter, Anne Hinton Westbrook; three grandchildren; a great granddaughter; and many nieces and nephews.
Services will be held at 10 a.m. tomorrow at the Church of the Nazarene on Rodgers Avenue in Ellicott City. Interment will be at Cheltenham Cemetery on Wednesday.
Memorial donations may be made to the American Heart Association.