Joyce Scinto passed away peacefully of natural causes on May 22, 2022 at age 98. She was born Joyce McErn in Withee, Wisconsin. The only child of Floyd and Rose McErn.
Joyce attended the Teachers’ College in Milwaukee which is now part of the University of Wisconsin.Sometime later on a blind date she met a young Navy Ensign, Lawrence Scinto, who was attending Marquette University Dental School. They hit it off and sometime later they were engaged and then married in Milwaukee.Joyce had her first son in Milwaukee.
Her husband graduated from dental school and the new family moved back to his hometown of Bridgeport, Connecticut. During this time, Joyce had her second son and soon the family was forced to move briefly to Texas and then to Virginia because of Lawrence’s military service. Ultimately the family finally settled back to life in Connecticut. As the boys got older, Joyce decided to start her teaching career in public schools. She also pursued a Masters degree in education. During a statewide teachers strike, Joyce resigned and subsequently was hired by a catholic school to teach reading to disadvantaged elementary students. Her teacher’s aide, Barbara, became her lifelong friend. Joyce was passionate about teaching reading. She wanted students to be able to get information and think for themselves and reading was the key. Joyce developed a theory that students could learn easier if problems and other fundamentals were presented in short story passages. Students would be learning skills in reading, math and spelling using interesting little stories that would hold their interest. She developed a whole line of workbooks for different basic skills and published them through a major education publishing company. These materials sold well for years until the advent of widespread use of computers in schools. In her spare time working with her mother-in-law she wrote a cookbook with all the family’s Italian recipes.
Joyce and Lawrence eventually retired to Florida. Joyce still wanted to teach and she was hired as a part time instructor at Seminole Community College to teach prospective GED students. While at Seminole, she struck a friendship with her boss, Sue. They would continue to stay friends after both retired.
Not satisfied with retirement, Joyce decided in her late 80’s to write a novel. The subject was a Florida family with a diverse group of adopted children. There ended up being three short novels. It goes without saying that Joyce was an avid reader. She loved history books both fiction and non-fiction. She also read a wide variety of mystery and detective novels. Her living room was lined with built-in bookcases holding up to 2000 books and she had read them all.
Joyce and Lawrence were married for over 50 years. He passed away in 2001. Joyce is survived by her two sons Daniel and Thomas, her grandchildren Gina, Jessie and Daniel and her great grandchild Riggs with a new great grandchild on the way.
Services will be held at Baldwin-Fairchild Oaklawn funeral home at 5000 C.R. 46-A, Sanford, Fl. on Tuesday, May 31st from 2-4 pm.