Known for years in the Beach community as the man who sold pens at the corner of Queen Street East and Lee Avenue and going by the nickname ‘Hollywood’, Wayne Joice died earlier this week.
A visitation will be held from him on the morning of Friday, Feb. 7 from 9:30 a.m. to noon at the Cardinal Funeral Home at 366 Bathurst St. just north of Dundas Street West.
Joice died on Tuesday, Feb. 4. He was 60 years old.
The visitation will be followed by a funeral service at noon at Cardinal, and burial will take place at Resthaven Memorial Gardens on Kingston Road in southwest Scarborough.
Joice had been selling pens in the Beach for more than 30 years, and was a well-known member of the community.
In 2013 he had to go into hospital for treatment for pneumonia and stopped showing up at the corner selling pens, which led to incorrect information stating that he had died.
Beach Metro News reporter Andrew Hudson was quickly able to reveal that information was false (it came in the form of a letter to the editor) in a story from August of 2013 in which he interviewed Joice and his close family friend Pat Pypher.
Joice had been hospitalized with pneumonia in the spring of 2013, which was why he stopped showing up at Queen and Lee to sell pens. While in hospital, he required a tracheotomy and a kidney stent as part of his treatment. By the fall of 2013 he had returned to selling pens at Queen and Lee, though not as regularly as in the past.
For years, Joice had to undergo kidney dialysis treatment and his friend Pypher donated a kidney to him.
According to Hudson’s story, Joice and Pypher are not related but their mothers were good friends and they grew up like brother and sister.
“She’s a terrific lady,” he said of Pypher in the story by Hudson. “I love her with all my heart.”
Joice followed his father into the pen-selling business. His father was blind and used to play a mouth organ outside Honest Ed’s until an illness made him switch to selling pencils.
“I expanded,” Joice told Hudson. “I moved it up a bit, selling pens.”
According to Hudson’s 2013 story, Joice kept coming to the Beach to sell pens, and Pypher twice helped him to find better apartments, the last one just down the hall from her own. As his legal next-of-kin, she has also helped him through medical issues. Please read the full story by Hudson at https://beachmetro.com/2013/08/01/hollywood-hopes-sell-pens/
For more information on the visitation and funeral service for Joice on Feb. 7, please contact Cardinal Funeral Home at 416-603-1444 or visit online at https://www.cardinalfuneralhomes.com/obituaries/mr-wayne-maurice-joice/
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