Joye Leslie Golden Corry was born September 27, 1941, in Atlanta, Georgia, to Willis Mansfield and Mary Dorothy Gower Golden. Joye died February 27, 2026, from the complications of mortal life.
At the age of 12, she moved with her family to Levittown, New York. After graduating high school, she attended nursing school at Queens Hospital Center School of Nursing. Upon graduation, she began her career working in ICU. In 1963 a “Corry” boy named “Elder” from Cedar City knocked on her door and asked her what did she know about the Mormon church. She was baptized and her life forever changed. The story of her pioneer journey to Utah was rife with trials and adventures. She met her husband and best friend ever, another “Corry” boy, W. Kent Corry on a blind date on August 3, 1968. They were married 15 days later in Elko, NV. Their marriage was solemnized in the Salt Lake Temple on August 18, 1969. While Kent attended law school, Joye continued to work in ICU and Inservice Education until their daughter, Amy, was born. They spent the next few years in Salt Lake City and in New York. In 1976, they moved to Cedar City where their son, William Andrew “Drew” (Melissa), was born.
Joye believed in putting her actions where her feelings were. She went door to door to obtain enough signatures to get street lights in her subdivision. She spent 10 or more years teaching Iron County kindergarteners about “Jimmy Germ”, a program she developed about the importance of washing their hands and keeping them away from the holes in their bodies. She served as the blood drive chairman in Cedar City for many years. She was a first aid merit badge counselor for the boy scouts and gave classes to young women before they went to Girls’ Camp. She was a member of the hospital’s health care foundation and spent time as a fund-raising chairman. The first project she worked on was to raise money to purchase life sustaining equipment for premature babies born in Cedar City who had to be life flighted to Salt Lake City.
Joye was a sincere believer in the power and importance of genealogy work and was a true “rockstar”, having submitted well over 100,000 names to her family tree. As she proudly would say “families are eternal” and she truly represented the beauty of those words. Joye also loved camping and fishing with her family and could clean a fish better and faster than anyone.
She was preceded in death by her parents and her sisters, Anne White, Dorothy Dale (Robert) Nystrom, and Virginia Lee (Rob) Billotti. She knew her children were miracles in her life and considered them the jewels in her crown. Her grandchildren and great grandchildren, Kaison (Amber), Kylie, Kade, Madison (Terry), Makenna, Mylee, Matea, Zackary, Emily, Jaxon and McCoy are the flowers in her garden. She was active in her church and served to the best of her ability whatever she was called to do. She had a deep abiding testimony of Heavenly Father and His son, Jesus Christ. She knew that death is part of life eternal. She would say often that she “did not want to live in her sins forever” and upon death would be able to shout “free, free at last… here I come.”
A funeral service honoring Joye will be held Saturday, March 7, 2026, at 1:00 pm at the LDS Fiddler’s Canyon Chapel (638 East Canyon Center Road, Cedar City, Utah 84721). Viewings will be on Friday, March 6, 2026, from 6:00-8:00 pm at Southern Utah Mortuary and prior to the funeral service from 11:30-12:30 pm at the church. Interment will be at Cedar City Cemetery under the direction of Southern Utah Mortuary. To share online condolences and view the funeral livestream, visit the website www.mortuary.org.