Joyce Elaine Gorrell

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Joyce Elaine Gorrell

October 27, 1928 ~ May 21, 2021

One “tough old broad,” Joyce Elaine Holstrom Gorrell, 92, passed away May 21, 2021 of cancer in her home at Sunrise of Holladay. A fighter through and through, Joyce survived five bouts with the insidious disease – colon, skin and three separate breast cancers – before a seed from the last breast cancer slowly infiltrated her body. She overcame a broken back from a fall, wet macular degeneration that required shots in her one good eye and withstood the loneliness of the pandemic and too many other indignities of old age.

Joyce was born Oct. 27, 1928 in Grinnell, Iowa to Harry and Louella (Nelle) Walker Holstrom. After her parents’ divorce, Joyce moved with Nelle and her Grandma Sadie Walker to Denver in 1940. She graduated in 1946 from St. Joseph’s High School, where the football players selected her as Homecoming Queen her senior year. While there, she lost the sight in her right eye in a fluke accident.

After high school, Joyce worked as a secretary in a Denver law office before meeting Bill Gorrell at a CYO dance. She married Bill on June 24, 1950 at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Denver. She gave birth to Mike in 1954 and Debbie two years later. Bill’s job with General Motors moved the family to Cheyenne, Wyo. and then to Salt Lake in 1958.

Joyce met Rosemary Holland at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church, which led to the development of lifelong friendships. When Debbie and Mike reached high school, Joyce returned to work. She was initially a secretary at the Murray Elevator fish-food plant before moving to the University of Utah, where she spent a quarter century as the administrative assistant in the Department of Educational Administration.

Joyce truly loved her pets, but nothing compared to the devotion she felt for her grandchildren Patrick and Ian Gorrell-Brown, and for Randall and Carl Edwards and the great-grandchildren they gave her – Amelia, Henry and Milo.

Joyce is survived by her son Mike (Kathleen Brown) and their two sons; Debbie (Roger Edwards) and their offspring; and sister-in-law Eileen Silverman Peckham (Herb). She was preceded in death by her husband, Bill, in 2014. The family would like to extend heartfelt thanks to Joyce’s many loving caregivers and friends at Sunrise, most of all Senovia.

A funeral Mass was celebrated on June 1 at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church.