Joyce Marillyn Kratt 89 died Thursday, September 24, 2026, at HopeHealth Hulitar Hospice Inpatient Center in Providence. She was the widow of Albert Trapper Kratt, Jr. who died in 2014.
Born in Omaha, Nebraska, she was the daughter of the late George E. and Anna June (Engel) Johnson. She attended Benson High School in Nebraska and upon completion took a Secretarial job at the Strategic Air Command Base in Omaha where she met the love of her life and they were married 6 months later. They relocated to Parsippany NJ while Albert finished college and then transferred to Smithfield RI in 1964 where they spent their life and raised their family.
Joyce was a stay-at-home mother. She loved to read and was an avid seamstress and quilter. She loved to cook and serve family all the mid-west home cooked recipes from her mother and grandmother.
She and Al spent their retirement years traveling and attending Elderhostel’s. They were always looking for something new to learn about this wonderful country.
Joyce had an obsession with Christmas and the day after Thanksgiving she would start her decorating of every space of her home, including changing all the curtains. The culmination of her Christmas passion was having the whole family to her home for a Christmas breakfast of Danish pancakes (Ebelskivers), a part of her family’s heritage and tradition.
Joyce is survived by her children: Robin Shields and A. Trapper Kratt, III, her son in law William Shields, her grandchildren Robert and his wife, Jennifer, Brian and his wife, Jessica, William, Margaret, Timothy and Mary-Catherine Shields, and her wife, Kylee, Marc Messier and Karli Kratt and her great grandchildren: Riley, Avery, Chase, Camden (Salisbury), Fiona, Seamus, Owen and Parker Shields. She was the mother of the late Kathy (Kratt) Messier and the sister of the late Georgeann (Johnson) Hepburn.
Her visitation will be held from 4-7pm on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, in the Anderson Winfield Funeral Home, Rt 44 at Greenville Common in Greenville. A service will be held at Anderson Winfield Funeral Home on Thursday October 1, 2026 at 11a. Burial will follow in the RI Veteran’s Cemetery, Exeter. In lieu of flowers, donations in her memory may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association.
Alzheimer's Association