Marguerite Florence Payne Boyce

Marguerite Florence Payne Boyce was born on July 8, 1915 in Birmingham, Alabama, the daughter of Hubert N. Payne and Lula Goddard. She graduated from Howard College (now Samford University), in Birmingham, Alabama. She also played cello with the Birmingham Symphony. Her plans for missionary work in Brazil changed when she met a seminary student from Columbia Seminary (Decatur, Georgia) serving a summer pastoral internship at Woodlawn Presbyterian Church. Marguerite married James Reid Boyce on May 17, 1940. The couple went to Mexico as missionaries under the Presbyterian Church, U.S. (Southern Presbyterian Church). James received his MD degree from the University of Mexico and they served in Mexico for 31 years, raising a family of 5 children, sowing the gospel, and returned to the U.S. in 1971. The churches they established in Guerrero have grown. The hospital they founded (Hospital de la Amistad) continues to serve Ometepec and the Costa Chica area of Guerrero (south and east of Acapulco) under local medical and administrative leadership. Dr. and Mrs. Boyce settled in Athens, Tennessee in 1974 where Dr. Boyce had a private medical practice, and were active in church and civic organizations such as the Lions Club, musical groups, Mars Hill Presbyterian Church and Sweetwater Presbyterian Church.
Marguerite Boyce died peacefully in her sleep on July 9, 2011 at the age of 96. She is survived by four of her five children: James Reid Boyce, Jr., of Williamsburg, Virginia; Dr. Mary F. Garza of Wichita Falls, Texas; Rev. Peggi K. Boyce of Antrim, New Hampshire; and William Erskine Boyce of Houston, Texas. Her daughter, Jane Elizabeth Boyce, died in a car accident on March 27, 1973. Mrs. Boyce also has 6 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren. Marguerite Boyce will be buried at Sardis Presbyterian Church Old Cemetery (Charlotte, NC), where her husband, the Rev. James Reid Boyce MD, is also interred. The funeral service will be Saturday, July 30, 2011 at 3 p.m. at Sardis Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, N.C. Interment will be on Saturday, July 30, 2011 at 2 pm in the church cemetery. The family requests memorial donations to a church ministry or charity in lieu of flowers.

Funeral Home:
A. S. Turner & Sons
2773 North Decatur Road
Decatur, GA
30033