Judith Atkins Baker

July 14, 1938 - April 5, 2023

Judith was born July 14, 1938, in Inglewood, California. Her younger sister, Sandy, was the youngest of the four siblings. Sister Bobbie was the oldest and Brother Bill was between Judith and Bobbie. Their mother Pearl also had a daughter; Jean, who was Judith’s half-sister.

Their father, Thomas William Atkins, died of a heart attack when she was 3 years old. She always remembered sitting on the curb, waiting for him to come home and he would stop and pick her up for the ride up to the parking place.

Judith attended Seventh Day Adventist schools. Apparently, movies were considered sinful by the SDA church. While she was in high school, she was asked to sign a pledge that she would not go to the movies. She refused and was sent to the principal’s office. She explained that their family was poor and occasionally attended a family-style movie that they all could enjoy together. She indicated that she could see nothing wrong with that. The principal was convinced and had her sign the pledge with a written exception added.

As part of her early education, Judith was devoted to art but was also required to take classes in secretarial skills. Following high school, she attended El Camino College for two full years. After leaving home, she worked in secretarial positions at several companies, including an insurance company, and later an electronics company. She took classes at the Art Center of Design in Los Angeles and remembered how smoky the classrooms were.

A friend of hers was going to be in a play, so she asked if she could come and watch. She was intrigued and asked for a part in the play. That was how she came to act one year in the world-famous Pilgrimage Play, which was performed 32 seasons, though it was interrupted for years during World War II and for the building of the Hollywood Freeway.

For a time, Judith lived in a shared apartment near Hollywood that was quite warm in the summer. She often took a book to read at the Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church where it was cooler. The priests befriended her and eventually helped her get a full scholarship to Mount Saint Mary’s Catholic college. She lived on campus, worked hard and took Art, Music, and additionally at one point, English horseback riding. At Mount Saint Mary’s, Judith music training included advanced piano classes. Years later she loved playing at home and working to perfect her skill.

At the start of her last semester, she signed up for 21 units. Her advisor admonished her, advising her to take fewer. She replied that her scholarship only included the final semester, and she would be unable to afford her remaining classes. She was allowed to take all the classes and graduated with a degree in Art and Music.

She then went back to working for an electronics company because the pay was higher than any job she could find in commercial art.

Judith met me at an Alumni Club Dance, and in 1969 we were married at St Philip the Apostle Church in Pasadena, California. The reception was at her sister Sandy’s house, and we left the next morning for a honeymoon in Honolulu at a hotel on Waikiki beach. After several days on the island of Oahu, we took a plane to Maui for the last few days.

When we got back to Pasadena, she took a job in downtown Los Angeles working in a commercial art studio that did illustrations for catalogs. The head artist would draw the figure and the outline of the clothes, and the other artists would color in the detail: plaid, paisley, stripes or whatever was needed.

For our tenth anniversary, Judith spent months planning and researching different historic hotels, inns and even one castle in which to stay in England, Scotland and Ireland. It was a wonderful trip. We rode the train up to Scotland and met some tipsy Irishmen, who suddenly switched to their best behavior when an 18-year-old girl came to sit in their compartment. Scotland was beautiful, but the most impressive was our final two day stay at Dromoland Castle in County Clare, Ireland.

Eventually, Judith attended Pasadena City College and earned a certificate in Dental Technology. She enjoyed the work, but especially the color of the gold when it was melting to create gold crowns. She worked at a lab on Green Street and at one point managed the lab for the owner for a month while he was on vacation. When that lab closed, she found a job at FAB Lab in Arcadia. She worked there until she retired because my job was moving to Tucson in 1994.

A major highlight of our years were the ski trips to Lake Tahoe starting in 1994. Both of Judith’s sisters and their husbands, Bob & Bob, nearly always came, and we all enjoyed each other’s company. Both sisters’ daughters came some of the time, and the younger Bob’s son skied with us a few times. Neither Bobbie nor Judith skied, but they enjoyed their separate time together. We all had so much fun that we went every year for over a decade.

Judith initially hated Tucson but came to love the area after she joined the FIT Center. She especially enjoyed the classes and the friends she made. Later, after the FIT Center closed, a group met once a month at a local restaurant.

In 2017, she required treatment for breast cancer, and she always blamed chemotherapy for the brain fog that she increasingly experienced. She slowed down a little every year. She is deeply missed!