Joyce Holmes McAllister

Joyce Holmes McAllister (January 16, 1931 – March 24, 2021)

Poet and retired Cornell University administrator Joyce Holmes McAllister was born on January 16, 1931, to Russell Ditmars Holmes and Alice Caslick Holmes in the old hospital on Quarry St. in Ithaca, NY. At that time, her parents lived on the Titus farm on Titus Rd., now Westhaven Rd. Later, the family moved to a farm outside of Groton, NY, and then to a farm on McClintock Rd. in Dryden, NY.

Joyce was a 1949 graduate of Dryden High School and an alumnus of Ithaca College, where she earned her degree as a drama major in 1953. While in college, she met and later married John J. Kontrabecki. Shortly after graduation they moved to New York City where Joyce worked for the Social Science Research Council. In 1960, the couple returned to Ithaca, and later that year their marriage was annulled. In 1964 Joyce married John J. McAllister, who died in 2004.

Upon her return to Ithaca Joyce started working for Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, now the ILR School. After four years she took a position with the College of Home Economics, now the College of Human Ecology, and eventually was named college registrar and a member of the faculty. Joyce retired in 1990 after 30 years of university service.

Having grown up on dairy farms around the time of WWII, Joyce learned at a very early age to be inventive with her cooking—always with the freshest ingredients right from their farms. Her love of the culinary arts blossomed during her married years with lively dinner parties and an ever-growing collection of food literature and cookbooks.

After her retirement, Joyce had time to pursue her lifelong interest in writing poetry. She published poems in The Comstock Review and The Healing Muse. At the age of 85 her first poetry chapbook, Before We Knew, was published by Foothills Publishing. This was followed by a second chapbook, Return, which was devoted to poems about her post-college life in New York City and published by Yellow Sofa Press. In 2019 a full-length book of her poetry, Food for Thought, was also published by Yellow Sofa Press.

Joyce is survived by her brother, Dr. Wallace Holmes (Dorothy), her two nephews, Stephen Holmes and William Holmes, and two nieces, Barbara Holmes and Cynthia Holmes. She is also survived by a niece and nephew through marriage, Lee Coppack and Joel Ruderman, as well as her “surrogate grandson and granddaughter,” Jeremy Webb and Carrie Webb VanGorder.

In lieu of flowers, Joyce asks that donations be made to Hospicare of Ithaca, New York, or the SPCA of Tompkins County.

A celebration of Joyce’s life will be held at a later date, to be announced.