Joyce Benson (nee Andrews) of Minneapolis, age 72, passed away on January 6, 2015 following a cardiac arrest four days earlier. 

Joyce was born on April 10, 1943 in Chicago, Illinois to Edward and Angeline Andruskevich. (Though she was proud of her Lithuanian/Polish heritage, she changed her name to Andrews when spelling out her birth name to every new friend and colleague became tiresome.) She attended DePaul University, then worked at a Chicago ad agency for several years before learning of a job opening in the promotion art department at Playboy magazine. On a dare, she applied for the job—and was hired. It was there that she met Doug, a young editor who would become her husband. But not right away. Doug didn’t like to rush into things, so they dated for nine years(!) before tying the knot. The decision to marry was prompted by Doug’s acceptance of a job offer in Minneapolis and Joyce’s suggestion that if she was going to leave her home town and move with him to the northern tundra, she’d rather do it as a wife than as a girlfriend. Doug agreed. Best decision he ever made. 

Over the next month they (meaning mostly Joyce) worked feverishly to sublet their apartments, planned and executed a wedding and reception in Doug’s landlord’s back yard, bought a house in Minneapolis, packed their belongings, and moved to Minnesota. Six weeks later Doug’s job was relocated to New York City. They rented out their house, moved with their dog to a rented a house in Greenwich, CT and for a year commuted together by train to Manhattan, where Joyce worked across the street from Doug at Playboy’s New York office, where she’d found a job with one of her old bosses.

 After a year, they decided that life was too short to spend so much of it on a train and moved back to Minnesota where Joyce worked for Hennepin County Veterans’ Services, retiring in 2003. She became an enthusiastic Minnesotan, even rooting for the Twins and Vikings—except when they were playing the Cubs or the Bears. She loved travelling to the North Shore and to the Boundary Waters, to Red Wing and Northfield and to her beloved Lake Harriet—which she referred to as her “church.” She made friends wherever she went: on a park bench, in a line at the grocery store, or in an airplane, within ten minutes she knew the life history of whomever happened to sit or stand next to her. She was kind, funny, an exceptionally graceful dancer, an avid reader, a cunning pinochle and backgammon player, a devoted lover of all animals, an ardent tennis fan and player (before the knee replacements), a superb cook.

Joyce is survived by her husband, Doug Benson; cousin Ann Marie Meeker (Jerry) and Ann’s daughters Lisa Spike (Brian) and Jennifer Fioti (John) and their children; nephew Joshua Kreimeyer (Amy) and three great-nieces; and niece Jenny Kreimeyer, as well as a legion of loving family, friends, coworkers and neighbors whose love she returned in kind.

A memorial service will be held in Minneapolis at 11:00 A.M. Friday, May 29 at the picnic shelter at Beard’s Plaisance on the west side of Lake Harriet at 45th street and Upton Avenue. The shelter is accessible from Upton Avenue or, up a hill, from the parking lot at the tennis courts on West Lake Harriet Parkway. A picnic lunch will follow the service.