Joyce Elaine Huntsinger (Hubbard)

Joyce Elaine Huntsinger (Hubbard) passed away on June 13, 2026, at the age of 86.

Mom was born on April 5, 1940 in Joplin, Missouri to LaVeta and Bert Hubbard. The family moved to Wichita, KS in her early childhood.

During her childhood, she enjoyed family trips to the lake, where she and her older brother, David, canoed and fished. As a young teen, she displayed her innate caregiving nature by doting on her much younger sister, Cindy.

At the age of 14, Mom was thrilled to see Elvis perform from floor seats at the Wichita Forum; but at that time, her eyes were set on a certain cross-town athlete, Phil Huntsinger. Displaying her tenacity at an early age, Mom managed to convince her parents to allow her to transfer to his high school. She caught Dad’s eye (in his words) walking up the bleachers in her navy blue skirt. Mom and Dad dated throughout high school with Mom being the calm, sweet balance to Dad’s outgoing, fun loving personality. They married on Aug. 8, 1958 when Mom was 18.

They started a family immediately. Before Mom’s 21st birthday, she was caring for two little girls, Jo and Jill, while Dad was attending college, playing football & baseball and working nights to provide for the young family. After Dad got in trouble in class for falling asleep, Mom, with her seemingly meager personality, marched into the professor’s office and gave him a verbal lashing (as the story goes). And so began her lifelong advocacy for her family.

The family moved to Colorado with a 3rd daughter, Julie, and then to Virginia for the arrival of their fourth daughter, Jenny. Mom was the ultimate caregiver. Her house teemed with neighborhood kids and stray pets and she was infamous for sewing homemade matching outfits for her girls throughout their childhood…much to the oldest daughter’s dismay.

The marquee summer of our family life was the summer of 1968. Dad was pursuing his doctorate at the University of Tennessee and decided it would be fun for the family to camp in the Smoky Mountains an entire summer. Mom, as always, was game for Dad’s wild ideas. Dad drove to Knoxville for school daily while Mom was solo in the mountains with four daughters, age 8, 6, 4 and 1 1/2. Unfazed, Mom always spoke of that summer as the best summer. We fished, swam in the lake, played in the woods, and bathed in the lake all while mom tried to keep us away from black bears. The local Knoxville newspaper featured our family in a story and apparently, Mom scrubbed us raw and curled our hair for the newspaper photo so we would appear civilized.

The family moved to Lawrence in 1973 when Dad accepted a teaching position at The University of Kansas. During their 60+ years in the Lawrence area, Mom and Dad pursued several business ventures including Joy’s Upholstery, the marina at Douglas County State Lake (which really meant they had access to boats and bait so they could fish all summer), and in 1977, they founded The Trading Post, a weekly shopper’s guide. The Trading Post became a local staple for buying and selling goods and services in the Lawrence area for 32 years. Despite having no newspaper experience, Mom performed every job imaginable to publish the paper each week including sales, graphic design and bookkeeping while teaching herself various tech iterations from the 1977 Compugraphic machines to the early Macs of the mid 80’s.

Family was central to Mom’s life. Over the years, there were endless family gatherings, vacations, and celebrations, which rarely involved some of the family, but most often involved all of the family. Mom and Dad supported their daughters and later grandkids in their many extracurricular activities taking them all over the state, country and even overseas. Mom and Dad were notorious for always being the first to arrive in the gym or on the field and also the last to leave. They were such staples at these events, that between their kids’ and grandkids’ teams, there were countless teammates who also depended on seeing Joy and Phil (or “Papa and Grandma”) in the stands.

In the early 90’s, Mom and Dad bought a one bedroom cabin at Table Rock Lake and spent every summer weekend there for decades enjoying fishing, lake serenity, and the ever growing family weekends. Although the family has grown to 29, the cabin still only has one bedroom, and it continues to be occupied every summer weekend.

Mom, at her core, was an extremely empathetic caretaker of animals, both wild and domestic. She took in multiple strays and saved countless wild animals at their home in rural Baldwin. When her worry for feral kittens during a brutally cold January was too much to bear, she collected them with the plan to nurse them until they could be adopted. It surprised no-one, that when the time came, adoption wasn’t an option. Mom, subsequently, had a cat entourage everywhere she went in the house for the remainder of her life at home. We daughters got a little salty about this, as we were clearly, and not so subtly, replaced by the 4 kittens.

Throughout her life, Mom had Dad by her side. It’s impossible to think of her without thinking of them. Mom was only 14 when she first set her eyes on Dad, and he proved to be an eternal caring, outgoing, fun loving, ornery partner with a fiercely loyal commitment to her. Dad modeled this lifelong endearment with unwavering, selfless care of Mom in the final years of her life.

Mom leaves a legacy of kids, grandkids and great grandkids who save spiders, live trap mice, and laugh when broken down on the side of the highway. She was light-hearted about the things many take too seriously, and deeply devoted to the things that really matter: family, hard work, fierce loyalty, empathy for animals and kids, laughter, and embracing a full, well lived life.

We are so fortunate to have her as our mom,
Jo, Jill, Julie and Jen

Mom is survived by her husband of nearly 68 years, Phil Huntsinger, four daughters: Jo Huntsinger, Jill Brown (Dan Brown), Julie Francis (Jon Francis), and Jenny Reid (Clayton Reid), 9 grandkids: Eric Brown (Kelsey Brown), Emily Hess (Rodney Hess), Taylor Brown, Tucker Brown (Grace Sunnell), Davis Reid (Kacey Eis), Evan Reid (Sami Marks), Tess Reid, Kyle Francis, Elaina Francis and 7 great grandchildren: Payten Brown, Adelyn Brown, Brinley Brown, Grayson Brown, Dylann Hess, Logann Hess and Sage Reid, a sister, Cindy Vadakin (Gordon Vadakin), and several nieces and nephews

We would like to offer our sincere appreciation and gratitude to the CNAs, Med Techs, and staff of Cedarhurst of Lawrence as well as to the nursing staff at LMH who provided care above and beyond expectations, not only for mom, but also for our entire extended family. The compassionate care they provide is exceptional.

To honor Mom’s lifelong empathy and care of animals, the family requests memorial donations be made to The Lawrence Humane Society in honor of Joy Huntsinger.

A Celebration of Life is planned for Monday, June 15, 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm at the home of Mike and Terri Broadwell, 992 E. 1600 Road, Baldwin, KS 66006.