Joyce Creel was a resident of Jackson County, WV, and a healthy and active 77-year-old woman. She was a tireless worker and knew how to “get things done” as an advocate for families and for labor issues on both the state and the federal levels. She began lobbying for legislation to benefit working class men and women as well as retirees in 1989 and never quit that work during her lifetime.

She served twice as the President of the Democratic Women’s Club of Jackson County. She received the Eleanor Roosevelt Award and was inducted into the Democratic Women’s Hall of Fame during her lifetime of community service. Joyce was a John F. Kennedy Democrat who believed that she shouldn’t ask what her country could do for her but rather what she could do for her country. She loved to take groups of people to the WV State Capitol to show them how the three branches of our government function and was a sought-after volunteer with over six thousand hours as both an activist and an event organizer.

She was very proud of her husband of over 50 years, Donald Ray, and her children, Crystal and Charles, who all three served in the military and did so with honors. She was especially close to her daughters, Nora and Kim, and her family meant everything to her. Her grandchildren were smitten with her and called her Granny Goose. Mom bought for every single one of them every Christmas. She was the matriarch of our family and hosted all holiday gatherings in her home in Cottageville, WV, a home that has been in our family for four generations. She could tell you the history of that home which at one time served as the Dunlap Hotel in that small town in the late 19^th century and early 20^th century.  We her children and grandchildren always considered it home, our place of refuge from life’s storms.

On September 9, 2021, Joyce was working in her flower garden and visiting with neighbors. That morning she walked to the post office as was her daily routine and went to Ripley for an ice cream cone with her daughter, Nora, her granddaughter, Zaneah, and her great grandson, Cross, later that evening. Joyce was a healthy woman with no comorbidities or pre-existing conditions save a slightly elevated blood pressure and a thyroid issue both for which she took a pill each once a day.

In the very early morning hours of September 10, 2021, Joyce fell and fractured her hip. She was x-rayed on September 11^th and saw a specialist on September 14^th. She was admitted to Holzer Medical Center in Gallipolis, OH, on September 14^th to have surgery in order to place two pins in her hip. The day of admission, she was screened verbally for COVID and was declared negative, but before she was taken to her room and in spite of being asymptomatic, she was swabbed and tested positive for the virus.

She had not even been taken to her room before she was administered Remdesivir and died within 48 hours after what can only be described as cruel treatment and out-and-out murder. It was later learned that her medical POA was told Joyce had COVID, “Don’t even ask about Ivermectin. It doesn’t work.”