Joyce Spruill Kallaher

Joyce Spruill Kallaher, a loving wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and nurse who cared for people all her life, died Thursday Sept. 18, 2025, in Brunswick, Georgia.

She was 95 and died after a short illness.

Joyce and her twin brother were born Dec. 6, 1929, in Hertford, North Carolina, to a family of sharecroppers. They moved frequently among farms in northeastern North Carolina and Tidewater Virginia.

In 1948, she left home, then in Smithfield, Virginia, to attend The King’s Daughters Hospital School of Nursing in Portsmouth, Virginia. She graduated in 1951 and worked at the now-closed Portsmouth General Hospital. She later qualified as a nurse anesthetist. She retired in 1989 after having served as the chief nurse anesthetist and caring for thousands of patients. In the early days, she monitored their conditions during surgery with the only tools then available: a blood pressure cuff, her watch and her senses.

The summer of her nursing school graduation, she married Bernard Waldo Lee Sr., a mechanic for the Virginia Transit Co., whom she had met as a teenager at a Future Farmers of America dance in Isle of Wight County.

They had three children _ Bernard Waldo Lee Jr. of Norfolk, Virginia; Kathy Lee Lindsay of Brunswick and John Wesley Lee of Baltimore _ and lived in the Cradock neighborhood of Portsmouth. They worshipped at Cradock Presbyterian Church, where Joyce was a circle member for many years. She nurtured many loving friendships among her co-workers and neighbors, and helped care for her mother-in-law, father-in-law and mother in their final years.

After the premature death of her first husband, Joyce married Joseph Patrick Kallaher Sr. of Memphis, Tennessee, in 1976. He died in 2008.

Her Cradock home was the setting for an annual Christmas dinner, always held the Sunday before Christmas, for her extended family. Joyce cooked everything she served: turkey, ham, Jello salad, collard greens, sherried walnuts and much more.

She was a talented seamstress and made many clothes, especially for granddaughters Katie Lindsay Wells of Savannah, Georgia, and Selina Robinson Lee of Baltimore.

Joyce retired in 1989, but never left nursing as she cared for older friends who needed help with food, company and cleaning out their homes. Also, the Kallahers traveled extensively throughout the United States and visited family, the latter of which she loved above all else.

Joyce moved from Portsmouth to Brunswick in 2020 to be with her daughter and son-in-law, the late Robert Alva Lindsay. She attended St. Simons Presbyterian Church.

She is preceded in death by her parents, Ernest Woodard Spruill Sr. and Penelope Simpson Spruill, as well as her siblings: Madeline, Woodard, Clayton and her twin, John.

Joyce is survived by her sister-in-law, Lillian Bailey Spruill of Smithfield; her children and stepson, Joseph Patrick Kallaher Jr. of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina (along with his wife, Brenda Powell Kallaher); her daughter-in-law, Amanda Kell of Baltimore; her granddaughters, including Karyn B. Conklin and Kathy K. Lampley; seven great-grandchildren, including Bobby Dylan Wells and Perry Elizabeth Wells of Savannah, and two nieces, Joyce and Diane.

The family would like to thank the staff of Addington Place, Hospice of the Golden Isles Inc. and Dr. Mitchell Jones and his staff, who provided invaluable care during Joyce’s final months.

In lieu of flowers, donations in Joyce’s memory may be made to the Hospice of the Golden Isles or Manna House of Brunswick.

A funeral service will be held September 27, 2025 at 2 p.m. at Little's Funeral Home in Smithfield, VA.

Online condolences may be registered at littlesfuneralhome.com or www.chapmanfuneralchapel.net