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Joyce May McGehee Bockemuehl a native of Memphis, Tennessee. She was the only child of the late Edith May Willis, R.N. of Louisiana and Herbert Hillery McGehee, of Mississippi.

Mrs. Bockemuehl attended public schools in Lansing and Detroit until leaving for Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan where she was a political science major and planned to continue to law school. Marriage to Robert Russell Bockemuehl changed those plans. Mr. and Mrs. Bockemuehl have one son, Kenneth Forrest Bockemuehl and two grandchildren Brooke Nicole Bockemuehl, Esq. an attorney in Fort Myers, FL and Russell Forrest Bockemuehl of Gainesville, FL. Robert is a retired electrical engineer and department head of the General Motors Research Laboratories who volunteers his talent at Recordings for the Blind and Dyslexic reading text books in scientific fields

Memberships

  • National Gavel Society
  • National Huguenot Society (Honorary President General)
  • American Descendants of the House of Burgesses 1619-1699 (Organizing Governor General)
  • National Society Dames of the Court of Honor (Honorary First Vice President General; Chaplain General)
  • Jamestowne Society (former Auditor General, National Council, Sales Chairman)
  • National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (former National Chairman of Volunteer Genealogists)
  • National Society Colonial Daughters of the Seventeenth Century (former Organizing Secretary General; Honorary State President)
  • Colonial Physicians and Chirurgiens (former Treasurer General; former Genealogist General; former Registrar General)
  • National Society Sons and Daughters of the Pilgrims (former Second Deputy Governor General)
  • Guild of Artisans and Tradesmen 1607-1783 (former Corresponding Secretary General)
  • National Society Colonial Dames of the Seventeenth Century (former National Chairman Chorus Director)
  • Daughters of Founders and Patriots of America (former State President, Investment Chairman)
  • Colonial Dames of America (former State President Chapter XXII)
  • National Society Colonial Dames of America (Michigan Registrar)
  • National Society Daughters of Colonial Wars (former member of the National Auditing Committee, former State President)
  • Continental Society Daughters of Indian Wars (former State President)
  • National Society Magna Charta Dames (former Regent Michigan Division)
  • Order of Descendants of Colonial Cavaliers
  • Order of Americans of Armorial Ancestry
  • Order of the Crown of Charlemagne in the United States of America
  • Baronial Order of Magna Charta
  • Dutch Colonial Society of Delaware
  • Order of Descendants of Pirates and Privateers
  • First Families of Kentucky
  • National Society Sons and Daughters of Antebellum Planters 1607-1861 (Councilor General)
  • Sons and Daughters of the Colonial Antebellum Bench and Bar 1565-1861
  • Society of the Descendants of Colonial Clergy
  • Huguenot Society Founders of Manakin in the Colony of Virginia
  • Flagon and Trencher
  • Daughters of American Colonists (former Chapter Regent)
  • Louisiana Colonials
  • Daughters of the Republic of Texas
  • First Families of Mississippi
  • First Families of Georgia 1733-1797
  • Colonial Order of the Crown
  • United Daughters of the Confederacy
  • National Society Southern Dames of America

Mrs. Bockemuehl was the Patron for the Hereditary Society Blue Book in 2000.

Notes

Mrs. Bockemuehl was a fifty-year member of the Order of Eastern Star, a twenty-seven-year member of The Village Woman’s Club, a private club with a philanthropic arm of community outreach, a thirty-year member of the P.E.O. sisterhood providing educational opportunities for women, offering scholarships and grants to assist women attain their goals.

Joyce authored one 700-page book Ezekiel Ross Jaques and Mary Evelyn Sering, Some of Their Ancestors and Descendants. She also worked on a book outlining and documenting her French lineages taking her from Louisiana to Quebec and Acadia.

She was made a Kentucky Colonel, she was a 27-year member of New England Historical and Genealogical Society and a longtime member of the Society of Genealogists in London.

Her avocational interests included philately, miniatures, needlework and music. She served on the state board of the Federation of Music Clubs where she administered a music therapy scholarship for 15 years. However, her devotion to genealogy took over. Consideration was given to becoming a certified genealogist but she found helping others find their lineages and membership in hereditary societies more rewarding.

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