8 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY NOVEMBER 28-DECEMBER 4, 2024 www.montereycountynow.com 831 On a bright fall morning, Joyce Lyndley is reminiscing while sitting in her room inside Ivy Park at Monterey, over 11,000 miles away and nearly a century from where her life began in Australia. Lyndley, who turns 100 on Dec. 3, has fond memories of meeting her American G.I. husband-to-be on a seaside holiday during World War II and coming to the U.S. on a “bride ship” with around 800 other women who married servicemen during the war. “You can imagine I’ve been through a lot,” Lyndley says by way of an introduction to her story, sitting in her favorite chair, perfectly positioned to watch the squirrels and birds outside her window. A portrait of her and her husband, Harry Lyndley, as young newlyweds after she arrived in America sits on the windowsill. In 100 years of living there’s always more to the story, and much of it took place on the Monterey Peninsula. Lyndley and her husband raised two children while Harry worked for the Naval Postgraduate School and she worked at first as a secretary for the Army Language School, now Defense Language Institute, followed by jobs at NPS, Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center and the Naval Environmental Prediction Research Facility. Weekends were for family time with trips to the beach and other jaunts. Looking back, Lyndley begins her story with meeting Harry, when she was 18 years old. “My girlfriend and I had been allowed to go to this seashore town on our own for the first time,” she says. “And that’s how it all started.” They met at a dance; Harry was there with a date who had bad breath. He and Lyndley hit it off. At the time, Harry was working in the office of General Douglas MacArthur in Brisbane, who had been made Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the South-West Pacific Area in 1942. “That’s kind of a cute story, because [Harry] was in the hospital. He had Dengue fever,” Lyndley recalls. “They came through and they said, ‘Can anybody type?’ And he said, ‘I can.’ And that’s how he got in MacArthur’s office. He wasn’t a big wheel or anything like that.” The couple married in 1945 before Harry was shipped back to the U.S. Lyndley followed in 1946 on the “bride ship.” After the war ocean liners ferried thousands of Australian women and their children to the U.S. and Great Britain to join their husbands. The couple lived in various places in the U.S., and even returned to Australia for a time. They eventually moved to Vallejo, where Harry, an electronics engineer, worked at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Lyndley remembers they visited Monterey once and were taken with the area, but Harry doubted he could ever find a job there. Then one day, a job popped up at NPS. It was a step up in his career, and a fortuitous move for the family. They had already welcomed a son, Wayne, several years earlier. A daughter, Laurie, was born at the old Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula location in Carmel. Eventually they purchased a home in the Toyon Heights area of Monterey for $12,000 with help from the G.I. Bill, says their daughter, Laurie Lindley Muender. The family thrived, enjoying family time at the beach, Point Lobos, Big Sur and other places along the coast, and on trips to the Central Valley to swim and warm up when things were chilly on the Peninsula. Lyndley learned tennis as a child and loved to play throughout her life. Locally she participated in inter-club matches all over the region. She played right up until she was 80 years old. Lyndley was still driving up until she was 95. She drove herself to Ivy Park six years ago when she moved in. Muender marvels at how Lyndley has survived multiple scrapes, including a near-death experience with cancer 18 years ago and multiple fractures from falls. Then there was the time Lyndley rolled her car on Holman Highway and emerged unscathed. She left the scene of the accident before police arrived so she could get to her tennis match. “She has nine lives like a cat,” Muender says. “It’s a surprise to me that I’ve lived this long,” Lyndley says. Birthday Girl Joyce Lyndley looks back as she approaches a milestone 100 years in the making. By Pam Marino Joyce Lyndley, who will celebrate her 100th birthday on Dec. 3, arrived in the United States from Australia in 1946. Her family eventually landed in Monterey, where Lyndley remained an active tennis player up until 80 years old. “You can imagine I’ve been through a lot.” TALES FROM THE AREA CODE DANIEL DREIFUSS Happy Thanksgiving from your friends at MPCC! Feeling for our Members, Board of Directors & Volunteers and their efforts to make the Monterey County business community so vibrant! thankful
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjAzNjQ1NQ==