Joyce Garcia

Joyce Garcia passed away on June 27, 2023, in Salt Lake City at the age of 68 after a five-year battle with metastatic breast cancer. She was born on September 3, 1954, in Beeville, Texas to her parents, Abelisia Arrisola and Gerardo Segovia Garcia. Joyce was very proud of her Mexican heritage, and especially her sister, Viola Garcia, her brother, Gerald Hector Garcia, their children, and her extended family.

Joyce’s early childhood was spent in Corpus Christi and Victoria, Texas. Her father was a millwright who worked at oil refineries in south Texas. At the age of eight, her family moved to St. Clair Shores, Michigan. She graduated from South Lake High School in St. Clair Shores and then enrolled at the University of Texas-Austin. She met her future husband, Henry Sheldon White, Jr., in 1978 while both were students at UT-Austin.
Joyce and Henry were married on October 30, 1984, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and they had two sons together, Michael Sheldon White (b. 1983) and Andrew Gerald White (b. 1987). Their oldest son, Michael, passed away in 2017 after a heartbreaking battle with drug abuse.

Joyce graduated from the University of Utah in 1996 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science. She worked at the University of Utah in the Office of Budget & Institutional Analysis for many years.

Joyce was an adventurer who loved being outdoors with her family and friends. She was an avid world traveler, biker, both an excellent golfer and baker, and she loved to hike and camp with her family in Minnesota and Utah when Michael and Andy were young. She embraced all challenges in life with a smile and can-do attitude. In later years, she enjoyed travel adventures with her sister-in-law, Frances White, biking in Moab and England with her good friend, Julie Macpherson, and fly fishing with her husband, son, and neighbors, William Barry and Susan Chesteen.

Up until the point that she could no longer travel, Joyce and Henry spent 18 years restoring a farm in Upalco, Utah. Joyce loved growing fruit and vegetables, hiking with her dogs in beautiful red-rock canyons adjacent to the farm, feeding apples to the horses, and watching sunrises and sunsets over the alfalfa field. Her farm was her beloved get-away place for peacefully reflecting and enjoying a simple lifestyle. She made wonderful friends in Upalco who treated her as family.

Joyce was a loving wife and mother, and she was greatly loved by her two sons and her husband of 39 years. She will be missed by her family and friends.

Joyce is preceded in death by her parents, sister, and oldest son, and survived by her husband, younger son, and brother. Her ashes are buried at Larkin Sunset Lawn 2350 E. 1300 S., SLC, alongside those of her oldest son.