Joy Deane Chace (“Joy”) was born in Fall River, Massachusetts to Robert and Mabel Deane on Saint Patrick’s Day in 1933. She spent her childhood and formative years on Seaview Avenue in Touisset (Swansea), Massachusetts, along with her parents and her brother, Bobby Deane, where she was an avid sailor of “Beetle Boats” on Narragansett Bay. Joy graduated from Case High School, where she served as Captain of the Cheerleading Squad during her Senior Year, and thereafter she attended Sullins College in Bristol, Virginia. Returning to Touisset, she became engaged to Frank Clinton Chace, Jr. (“Stub”) of Fall River, Massachusetts, while Stub was a Midshipman at the United States Naval Academy. Joy and Stub were engaged during Army-Navy Weekend in 1952, and they were married at Christ Church, Swansea, Massachusetts in June 1953, immediately following Stub’s graduation from the Academy and his commissioning as a Marine Corps Officer.

From that point forward, Joy was the quintessential “Marine Corps Wife” and mother. While raising four children, she greatly contributed to Stub’s career by establishing loving homes at numerous Marine Corps posts and stations across the country, in California (twice), New Jersey, Florida, and Virginia, and she captained the family ship during Stub’s year-long unaccompanied overseas assignments to Okinawa, Japan (twice) and a combat tour in Viet Nam during 1968. During Stub’s combat tour, Joy was recognized as “Mother of the Year” in a contest sponsored by the Palm Beach Post, which earned her family an invitation to an Easter celebration at the Marjorie Merriweather Post Pavilion, Mar-a-Largo, in Palm Beach, Florida. Perhaps most emblematic of her loving and generous spirit are her nicknames “Momma Chace” and “Nannie,” as she was known by her extended family: Stub’s colleagues, her children’s friends gained from tours in the Marine Corps and their college and professional years, and her grandchildren. For so many, Joy made the Chace Home their “home” too, a place of refuge and a haven for her sage advice, but none more so than for her “adopted” daughters, Cathie and Karen Walsh, whose mother, Connie Walsh, lost her courageous battle with breast cancer in 1971. To all the “kids” she raised, whether young, teenaged, or adult, she will always be “Nannie.”

Although mainly a homemaker/mother/wife, Joy’s love of life and her zest for adventure spawned several professional and charitable “careers” over the years: Red Cross Volunteer at the Quantico Naval Hospital; Hostess at the Lazy Susan Restaurant and Dinner Theatre in Woodbridge; Virginia, owner and operator of “Nannie’s Nook” antique store in Dumfries; Virginia, and President of the Board of Directors, La Fontana, in West Palm Beach, Florida. In her later years, she was an avid supporter, advocate, Momma, and party host for “Go For The Greens Foundation,” a non-profit organization created by her daughter Cindy and Diane Sears, which operates an annual women’s business development conference at Walt Disney World, and which also supports green technologies, the sport of golf, and breast cancer awareness and research.

Joy passed-away peacefully in her home at La Fontana, West Palm Beach, Florida, surrounded by her children and other family members. She was predeceased by her husband, Colonel Frank C. Chace, Jr., and she is survived by her children and their spouses, Christopher and Sara Chace, Stephen and Karen (Walsh) Chace, Kimberly Chace and David Brigante, Cindy Chace and Yvonne Miller, Cathie Walsh, and her seven grandchildren and seven great grandchildren.

Joy’s Celebration of Life will be held at the Semper Fidelis Memorial Chapel, Marine Corps Museum, Triangle, Virginia, on April 17, 2024, and she will be reunited with her beloved husband, Stub, at the Columbarium, U.S. Naval Academy, on April 18, 2024. Her family requests that any donations made in lieu of flowers be sent to the “Colonel Frank (“Stub”) Chace and Joy Chace Memorial Fund,” at the Go For The Greens Foundation, https://goforthegreens.org/do…, or to the Trust Bridge Hospice of Palm Beach, www.trustbridge.com.   

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