Judith Russ Leon

Judith Russ was born and grew up in Detroit, Michigan. She was the daughter of David and Sylvia Russ who are both deceased. She is survived by her husband Steven Leon and her sister Charlotte Fauman. A second sister Toby Zgoralski is deceased.

Judith graduated from Wayne State University with a degree in Medical Technology and then worked at Detroit General Hospital in the 1960s and early 70s. She met Steven Leon at a wedding in 1970 and two years later they were married. Both Judy and Steve were humanists. They were married by Rabbi Sherwin Wine, the founder of the Birmingham Temple, the very first Humanistic Judaism congregation.

In 1972 Judith moved west to join her husband and worked at McKay-Dee Hospital in Ogden, Utah. While in Utah she was active in the National Organization of Women and worked to try to get the Equal Rights Amendment passed. During that period she took classes in Economics at Weber State College. She also studied Economics at Stanford during the 1977-78 academic year when her husband was visiting the Computer Science Department.

In 1979 Judith and Steven moved to Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Judith became involved in the YWCA investment clubs and was active in teaching club members the basics of investing. She served a term as the President of the New Bedford YWCA. She also worked with the National Association of Investment Clubs (NAIC). She gave lessons on the fundamentals of analyzing stocks to many clubs in the New England area. She was part of a volunteer group that designed and maintained the NAIC Web pages. Particularly noteworthy are the online tutorials that she developed on how to study and evaluate the growth potential of stocks. Later she was one of the founding members of InvestEd, an investment education organization, and served for a number of years as their Web editor.

Judith was a loving and devoted wife, the ideal partner. She accompanied her husband on sabbatical leaves to visit universities in Palo Alto, Stockholm, Zurich, and San Diego. They loved living in these four cities and had always planned to move to one of the California cities when Steven retired. They bought a house in San Diego and stayed there for parts of two winters with the goal of being completely moved before November of 2017.

In accordance with her wishes, Judith is being cremated and her ashes will be spread out at sea. Services to remember Judy are being planned in both Detroit, MI and Dartmouth, MA on dates to be announced.