Joy Cordery died of natural causes on May 23 in Southampton. She was 89.
Known in Southampton as the charming solicitor for advertisements in the publications of the League of Women Voters, Ms. Cordery was also active in the Southampton Rose Society, the Old Town Garden Club, and the Southampton branch of the Herb Society of America. She had a passionate interest in botany, archaeology, classical music, travel and nature, especially birds.
Survivors said she was an energetic warrior on behalf of the environment. Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” motivated her and others to present a “Go-Green” plan to the Town of Southampton and the Village of Sagaponack, resulting in their establishing committees and coordinators to protect the environment.
Ms. Cordery had an illustrious career in rehabilitation and occupational therapy. She originated a treatment called joint-protection training to help arthritis sufferers reduce pain and maintain functional ability. This science-based innovation is still used around the world, helping millions of people, according to survivors.
For 25 years, she was administrative director of rehabilitation at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan, until her retirement in 1990. Before that, she held the following positions: instructor in research to occupational and physical therapy students at Columbia University College of Physicians, senior occupational therapist in research in the Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine at New York University Medical Center, and a researcher at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Ms. Cordery wrote and edited extensively in her field, editing two special issues on rheumatic disease for the American Journal of Occupational Therapy. For 10 years she was editor of the Arthritis Health Professions newsletter, which was so successful that it grew into Arthritis Care & Research, an official peer-reviewed journal of the American College of Rheumatology. She had a first-class scientific mind, and was always eager to discuss a broad range of complex issues, but was warm, approachable and down to earth, survivors said. They added that Ms. Cordery loved life in all its variety.
She was born in 1926 to Ted and May Cumberland in Stamford, Lincolnshire, England, and is survived by cousins, Margo and Jennie Bierne, in England.
A memorial service will be held at the Southampton Cultural Center, 25 Pond Lane, Southampton, on Friday, June 26, from 3 to 6 p.m.
Memorial donations may be made to the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Box 2235, East Hampton, NY 11937; East End Hospice, Box 1048, Westhampton Beach, NY 11978; or the Southampton Rose Society, Box 1022, Southampton, NY 11969.
on Jun 22, 2015