They both continued graduate studies at Purdue University and were married during semester break on January 25, 1965. Joyce received a PhD in Nutrition Science in 1968 and pursued post-doctoral research in Nutritional Biochemistry at the University of Illinois.

She, along with her husband, Jack, and son, Jason, moved to the Quad Cities in 1972, where Jack was employed by Deere & Co.

In 1990 Joyce and Jack founded a support group for gay and lesbian youth that later became known as Quad Citians Affirming Diversity (QCAD). Joyce led that organization until 2017 when it was passed to Western Illinois University Moline. During that time Joyce served hundreds of LGBTIA youth and adults and was a strong advocate in supporting the efforts that led to the establishment of civil rights laws protecting the LGBTIA population in the Quad Cities.

In no small part to Joyce, Illinois and Iowa offer discrimination protection for gays in areas of employment and housing, with Illinois extending it in 2005 and Iowa following suit in 2007. Locally, Davenport enacted the protection in 2000, followed by Moline in 2002 and Bettendorf in 2004.

Wiley made impassioned pleas at city council meetings and the states' capitals. She accompanied same-sex couples to county buildings, long before Iowa made gay marriage legal, only to watch them be denied marriage licenses. When she spoke about gay rights, she spoke from the heart.

Joyce Hale Wiley passed peacefully at home in hospice June 14, 2020, as a result of complications from Alzheimer's Disease. She is survived by; her husband, Jack Wiley, son, Jason Hale Wiley (Luke Vuttera) of Rockford, IL, daughter, Alice Louise Wiley Pickett (Kyle) and grandsons Ned Pickett and Grant Pickett of Springfield, MO, sister Linda Barter of Tucson, AZ, and sister Alice Hirt (George Katsanos) of Holland, MI, plus several nieces and nephews.

 

This scholarship, in Joyce Wiley’s memory, was established through memorial gifts made by family, friends, and colleagues.