Joyce Conn has enjoyed a long life and now, in her twilight years, has many memories that include accomplishments as well as tragedies.
Conn – known as ‘Miss Joyce’ by many friends and acquaintances – will turn 92 Oct. 17 and, with daughter Karen Mitcham by her side, she highlighted some of those memories last week. Mitcham confirmed that her mother, like many elderly individuals, suffers from some short-term memory loss and mobility issues.
Nonetheless, Conn was willing to share some observations in an interview in her home in Gray last week, and Mitcham actually started the discussion by showing her mother a clipping from The Jones County News.
The clipping was from a January 19, 1978, edition and entitled ‘What Do You Think?’. Conn was asked if she like to see Jones County stay the way it is or become a suburb of Macon.
She replied, “To tell you the truth, I would like for it to continue to be a rural community. I’m basically a country girl. I don’t want to get citified.”
She said last week nothing has changed.
“I still feel the same way,” she declared.
Before she was a Conn, Joyce Chapman grew up on Highway 49 in Jones County and had two brothers and a sister. Her dad, Lee Chapman, was a farmer during the summer and worked as a bus driver in Macon.
Mitcham recounted the story of when Billy Conn lived in Macon, a student at Mercer. He would come out to Jones County on Sundays and see Joyce at church. He would ride home with Lee Chapman, who was on his way to work.
On one of those trips, Mitcham said Billy asked Joyce’s father if he could marry her.
Chapman’s reply? “I hadn’t thought about it.”
“I told him (daddy) to be nice,” Conn said.
Billy and Joyce married in the fall of 1951 and had six children: Karen, Bill, Bruce, John, Candy and Honey.
Conn said she worked at J.C. Penny’s for two years after graduating from high school before the obtained her realtor’s license. She shared that she started her real estate career with Ed Willis Realty in Macon in 1964.
“I worked for him about three years,” she recalled. “Then I came out to Allfarm. I worked there for about 13 years.”
It was then that she decided to go into business for herself and opened Conn Realty, still going strong in its 46th year.
“I wanted it all,” Conn said of her reason for leaving Allfarm. “If somebody was going to get it, I might as well get it.”
Conn’s life was turned upside down in December of 1984 when Billy Conn was killed in a car wreck.
“He was on his way to see his brother in Rome,” Mitcham said. “What we think killed him was the steering column was supposed to collapse, and it didn’t. Mama always said he had a second to say a prayer before he died.”
Conn recalled how it made her feel.
“When he died, I didn’t die, but I felt like I died.”
The real estate entrepreneur later became Joyce Conn Folendore when she met and married J.C. Folendore, a widower. They married in April of 1986 and remained husband and wife until his death in 2005.
“I loved that man,” she said. “He would give me anything I wanted. He was a good man, and good to me.”
Mitcham said the family loved J.C. Folendore.
“J.C. and daddy were opposites. It was easy to love him,” she expressed. “He wasn’t in competition. He was his own man in his own way, and daddy was his own man in his own way. It was a really good wedding of families.”
Conn was an excellent piano player and played in years past at Immanuel Baptist Church; Billy was a volunteer minister of music. Later, when she married J.C., she played at New Salem Baptist Church.
“She stayed active with Sunday School class at First Baptist of Gray, but she would go and play the piano at New Salem on Sundays,” Mitcham recalled.
In between the deaths of her two husbands, Conn lost another family member. Her oldest son, Bill, died of cancer in 1995.
“He fought it for 15 years,” Mitcham said.
“I miss him so much,” his mother lamented.
Bill was a realtor with Conn, and the Bill Conn Parkway that runs between Gray Highway and James Street recognizes his efforts in helping develop that area.
Mitcham asserted that a lot of knowledge was lost when her mother suffered short-term memory loss.
“Mama knew every piece of land in the county, what would perk, what wouldn’t perk. She would go up to the courthouse every day and look at the titles, see what was moving, what was going on. She was very attuned to the details.”
Mitcham said one of the reasons her mother chose real estate was for the flexibility. She could take off to attend her children’s various activities.
“But, the flip side of that,” she pointed out, “it was always hard to carry mama away on a vacation. We’d have to get about down to Perry on I-75 going to Daytona before she would calm down. Daddy would have to kidnap her: ‘Ok, we’re going!’ She liked to work.”
Conn liked to work so much she stayed active in the business over 50 years.
“I loved every day of it,” she declared. “It’s a good job. You meet different people, interesting people.”
Asked if she met any she didn’t like, Conn replied, “I’m sure I didn’t like a lot of them, but they didn’t know it.”
Mitcham said that, basically, her mom couldn’t help but work.
“The bottom line is, she was type A, redheaded workaholic. But, she hid that very well from everybody.”
Conn was asked if she remembered the largest land transaction she handled.
“660 acres, in Bolingbroke. I bought it and divided it up and sold it. I made good money off it,” she added after a lengthy pause.
The real estate professional did have a life away from work, however.
“She was very active, civic-minded,” Mitcham stressed, “a founding member of the Pilot Club and Rotary Club. She was a member of Gray Garden Club; she loved that, and DAR. She has lots of certificates.”
Mitcham asked her what was the hardest thing she has gone through in her life.
“When Bill died,” she said simply.
“I knew she was going to say that,” Mitcham remarked. “That was so hard on her. Because,” she added with a laugh, “Bill was her favorite.”
Conn took offense to that.
“That’s not true. I didn’t have a favorite. They were all my favorites. I loved them all.” A moment later she added, “I loved their daddy.”
