By CATHY DYSON

Joyce Boxley has always treated the people in her care like members of her family, whether she was driving them to school or changing the sheets on their beds.

"She is such a wonderful person," said Becky Glazebrook, who hired Boxley as a domestic worker 25 years ago and considers her "more like family than employee."

"She's just one of those people you can't say enough about," Glazebrook said. "She has been there for me, through thick and thin."

Boxley also drove a school bus for 44 years until she recently decided it was time to turn in the keys. Friends and family members surprised her with a retirement party in June at the King George Citizens Center, and Boxley is still reveling in the moment.

When she's not cleaning bathrooms or washing clothes at one of the five homes where she works--or shuttling around her nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren--she rereads the cards and letters from former students and co-workers.

"It makes me feel so good and loved and everything," she said.

Others say that's just the kind of impact Joyce "Blondina" Brown Boxley has had on them over the decades.

STILL CARING FOR OTHERS

A lifelong resident of King George, Boxley started cleaning houses with her mother as soon as she was old enough to handle a dust rag. She planned to marry a rich man, but said she "got a good one instead."

She and William Earl Boxley had six children together, five girls and one boy.

Her husband died 18 years ago. He was a construction worker and had a heart attack on the way home from work.

Joyce Boxley has stayed in the same small house on Caledon Road where her five girls shared a bedroom, and the family got by with one bathroom.

Boxley gave her age--then told a reporter she'd better not publish it. Even though she's old enough to be fully retired, Boxley doesn't plan to give up her domestic jobs.

"Everybody said, 'Don't work yourself to death,' but I've been with these people so long, it's like I'm at home," she said. "I'm probably older than all of them, but I'll still take care of them."

'SHE WAS THE BEST'

Boxley said she isn't exactly sure what Facebook is, but knows the social network was filled with comments about her retirement.