O'TOOLE, Joyce

1921 - 2021

As Joyce Rita Thomas, she was born at Terrington Hall, Terrington, Yorkshire on 20 May 1921, daughter of John Lewis Thomas, a schoolmaster, and his wife Nellie née Gibson, who married at Kensington, London in 1920. In 1939 Joyce was a State Registered Hospital nurse at the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital in City Road, London. She married at Wandworth, London in 1945, Desmond Ignatius O'Toole (29 July 1917-13 September 1989) and painted as Joyce O'Toole. A former midwife, who previously worked in Cornwall, Edinburgh and in London, and raised her four daughters in Sproughton, near Ipswich alongside her husband Desmond, who managed the local sugar beet factory. They later lived at The Drift, School Lane, Bromeswell, near Woodbridge in Suffolk where her husband died in 1989. Joyce was a keen walker, swimmer and artist leaving behind a multitude of plein air oils and watercolours depicting Suffolk scenes and several copies of old masters. Joyce Rita O'Toole died at Woodbridge on 23 January 2021, aged 99.

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Works by This Artist