Joyce Boyd Bourne, known for community activism and work as Gordon Heights fire commissioner, dies at 80

Joyce Boyd Bourne didn’t just serve her community; she held it together, according to family and friends. Whether she was negotiating or cooking, she made everyone feel at home.

“She was saintly, like a mother to us all,” said Rosalie Hanson, 63, a friend who met Bourne 20 years ago in Gordon Heights. “She just had a way about her.”

Bourne, a trailblazing fire commissioner for the Gordon Heights Fire District and a lifelong community activist, died June 26 at home in Middle Island after a two-year battle with pancreatic cancer, according her son Curry. She was 80.

Born on Feb. 27, 1945, in Nortonville, Kentucky, Bourne grew up in a coal mining town as the fourth of six siblings. Her father died in a mining accident when she was 7, leaving her mother to raise the family on her own and with “the help of the good Lord,” her sister, Eva Pugh, 84, told Newsday.

Growing up during the Civil Rights Movement, Bourne was part of the community that pushed back and said, “You’re going to let us go to school [because] we paid the taxes,” a close friend, Meryl Porter, said. Bourne was the first Black student to attend South Hopkins High School, then an all-white school in Nortonville, Pugh said.

Bourne faced daily verbal harassment from classmates, Curry said, but she was determined to receive an education. Her civil activism extended to her marching with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1964, Newsday previously reported.

She later attended Kentucky State University for one year, majoring in home economics, but moved to New York to live with her uncle when she was 19. She intended to return to school after saving enough money, but “life got in the way,” said Porter, of Dix Hills, who met Bourne when she first moved to New York.

'She was always working'

Over the years, Bourne lived in various parts of Long Island, eventually settling in Middle Island, where she raised her two sons, Curry, now 57, and Sean, 52. Her husband, John Calvin Bourne, died in 2013 from lung cancer, her family said. 

She held numerous jobs throughout her life, including in the fraud department at Lowe’s and served as a volunteer instructor for AARP Driver Safety, and assisted senior citizens. Porter described Bourne as a “personal assistant,” someone who was always helping others, often in ways that didn’t come with a title.

Porter said it was difficult to know “if she ever retired” because “she was always working.”

“God willing, if her body didn’t let out on her, she would have continued doing that till she was 100,” Porter said.

Bourne's most visible work was as fire commissioner for the Gordon Heights Fire District, where she was first elected in December 2012, according to an earlier Newsday story.

Determined to ease the community’s financial burden, Bourne focused on reducing the fire district’s high tax rate. With the help of then-State Sen. Kenneth P. LaValle, she secured the district’s first state grant of $250,000 to support day-to-day operations, Hanson said.

“She did everything she could to help get the grants and go to the meetings and just explain to everybody what was going on,” Hanson said. “Because of her giving personality, she was able to be friends with everybody in the fire department who thought that the taxpayers were against them.”

Bourne also was an active member of the Hempstead Branch of the NAACP, working alongside Barbara Powell, the organization's president. She described Bourne as a “God-fearing woman” who fought against discrimination and stood firm in her beliefs.

“She was compassionate. She fought for what was right,” Powell said.

In 2023, Powell nominated her for the Town of Brookhaven’s Women’s Recognition Award. Bourne received the award in the Community Service Volunteer category.

Faith, family, food

Outside of her work life, three things mattered most to Bourne: God, her family, and cooking for people, according to Porter.

Faith was a constant. Raised in a Protestant household in Kentucky, Bourne attended Bible study and church every week as a child, Pugh said, and even as her schedule in New York grew busier with work and caregiving, she remained grounded in her spirituality, Porter said.

Powell recalled Bourne's favorite line to tell others: “Pray, ’cause it doesn’t cost anything for you to pray, you know?’”

Curry and Sean described their mother as “old school.”

“She was traditional in every sense of the word,” Curry told Newsday. “[She was] honest. When I say honest, I mean honest; like if I did something, she would call the police on me.”

Bourne expressed her care through service and food. She was widely known for being a great cook, her friends said. She’d regularly cook soul food and bake treats not just for herself and family, but also for the community. 

“She was always working, and when she wasn’t working, she was cooking for somebody or baking for herself,” said Porter, who described Bourne as a "‘roll-up-the-sleeves, get in there and help’ kind of person.”

“She was famous for her cakes, so we called them ‘Joyce’s cakes,’” Hanson said. “Everybody would come by and take home half of a cake, and we’d be thrilled.”

Bourne loved to discuss politics “all day and all night,” according to Porter, but when she needed a break from that, she would unwind by watching her favorite cooking shows.

In addition to sons Curry, of Hempstead, and Sean, of Arizona, survivors include three siblings: Pugh and James Boyd, both of Detroit, and Clarence Boyd, of Georgia.

Bourne's remains were cremated. A memorial service will be held Saturday at 10 a.m. at St. Mary’s AME Zion Church, 537 Granny Rd., Medford, with a gathering to follow at the Gordon Heights Fire House, 23 Hawkins Ave., Medford.