Sue Dunkle Judge

Sue Dunkle was born in Denton, Texas, on January 12, 1927. Sue’s father Paul was the superintendent at the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station No. 6 at the northeast corner of Masch Branch Road and Hampton Road where he supervised research in small grains. Her mother Rosella was a homemaker. Sue grew up during the Great Depression and she remembers her mother feeding homeless men who stopped by the back doorstep. Sue was an only child and enjoyed much freedom around the farm including having a horse named Peaches when she was only five. Her paternal grandparents lived in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Sue spent many summers there, which was the beginning of her love affair with travel.

Sue graduated from Denton High School and then received her undergraduate degree at Texas Women’s University with a concentration in Home Economics and Chemistry. Before she graduated her father had a fatal heart attack at fifty-two which left Sue and her mother devastated with grief. Sue then did postgraduate work at Iowa State University where she met her future husband. George Judge served in the Pacific theatre in WWII, had graduated from the University of Kentucky, and was doing his Ph.D.graduate work in agricultural economics at Iowa State. After their brief courtship and marriage in Ames, Iowa, Sue and George lived in Connecticut and Oklahoma as George embarked on a career in academia at the University of Connecticut and Oklahoma State University. Daughter Lisa was born in Connecticut and daughter Laura was born in Oklahoma. The family settled in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, where George was a professor at the University of Illinois and Sue was a homemaker. They enjoyed sabbaticals at the London School of Economics in London, England and at the University of California in Berkeley, California, while the girls were growing up.

The family enjoyed traveling across the world including an extended journey across Europe. Their home was always open to many graduate students and colleagues from across the United States and world. Sue and George were an active part of the university community and had many close friends on the faculty. Sue was a welcoming and warm hostess to many parties and dinners in the home they built on Mayfair Road.

After twenty-five years of marriage and after Lisa and Laura had moved out on their own, Sue’s marriage to George ended in divorce. Soon after the divorce Sue completed her college training as a registered nurse and worked at Carle Hospital in Urbana, Illinois. Sue ultimately relocated to Denton, Texas, where she had many lifelong friends and gave devoted care to her mother until her mother’s passing at the age of ninety-seven. Sue retired at sixty-two from nursing at Westgate Hospital in Denton to provide in-home care for her mother’s last two years of life. During these years Sue loved traveling worldwide with her best friend Edith “Edie” Ellison, playing bridge, tending to her yard and garden, generously aiding elderly friends, and participating in a book club. Sue was very articulate, well read and well informed; and was a loyal and devoted friend to all who knew her. She was generous with small kindnesses, thoughtful of others, and blessed with the skills of turning a house into a loving and warm home. She had excellent “people” skills and put everyone at ease with her warmth and openness. Sue was blessed with a granddaughter Heather and visited her often in Holland, Michigan, where Laura and son-in-law Kelly Price lived. Sue also spent much time in Austin, Texas, where daughter Lisa and the Ellison family resided.

Sue turned ninety on January 12, 2017, while residing at Good Samaritan Denton Village and enjoyed a week of celebration with her family surrounding her. As her needs increased, she moved to Holland, Michigan, to be close to her daughter Laura and spent her last year and a half at American House.

Sue is survived by her daughter Lisa Judge, in Austin, TX, daughter Laura Judge in Holland, MI, son-in-law Kelly Price in Holland, granddaughter Heather Price (and her fiancé Josh Halper) in New Castle, CO, her cousin Linda Koslowski in Manzanita, OR, and her cousin Joni Runnion in Fort Worth, TX.