Janet Mary Judge

Janet Mary (Ball) Judge was born on June 10, 1924, in Leicester, England, the second daughter of Col. John and Hilda Lucy (Kent) Ball. Upon finishing school, she took a secretarial course and worked for both Shell-Mex and BP. Still a young girl when the war broke out in 1939, Jan initially helped the British war effort by "fire watching" at night, and eventually joined the Land Army when she turned eighteen – modestly explaining that "It had an attractive uniform with no buttons to polish!" While in the Land Army, a critical civilian organization for England’s war effort that replaced those men who formerly worked in agriculture but who had subsequently been called up by the military, Jan worked full-time on several farms in and around Kirby Muxloe, Leicestershire, managing to return home only on weekends – when work permitted – by cycling up to ten miles each way. However, as she often put it, “The worst of the job was picking brussels sprouts on a frosty morning.”

It was while she was in the Land Army that Jan met her future husband, Joseph E. Judge, a native of Brooklyn, NY, who was a staff sergeant and navigator with the USAAF 44th Troop Carrier Squadron based at RAF Cottesmore, outside Leicester. The two were married on April 11, 1945, just before the war’s end. They were separated shortly after VE day in May 1945, when Joe was returned to the United States to begin preparations for action in the Pacific – an event that fortunately was precluded by VJ Day in August 1945. When the war ended, Joe returned to England to teach at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, for a year. During this time, the couple lived with Jan's parents in Nottinghamshire. Joe returned to the States to study for his Ph.D. at the University of Denver, and Jan joined him there in 1948 with their first child, Christopher, who had been born in January 1946 in Leicester. As it turned out, Jan was on one of the very last flights of European war brides to the United States, landing in New York on December 28, 1948, from whence she trained out to Denver – a city which she forever condemned for being “Too far removed from the sea.” It would be twelve years before she was able to visit England and see her family again.

Over the years, the family of Janet and Joe grew to ten children, in the process relocating from Colorado to California where they lived in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, and Ridgecrest. Jan would remain in California for the rest of her long life, finding frequent opportunity during her last decades to fly home to England to visit with her father, aunts, uncles, younger sister, brother, and cousins. After her husband died in 1991, Jan moved first to Berry Creek and eventually to Emeryville, where she remained until moving in with her son Thomas in San Leandro in 2008. She passed away quietly in her sleep early Friday morning, October 8, 2010. Although she had lived in the United States for almost her entire adult life, Janet retained her English (not British!) heritage, her English ways, her British citizenship, and her unswerving loyalty to the Royal Family. Her sense of Englishness was often visited upon her children, whom she often reminded “had not a drop of American blood in them!” This, because their father, Joe, was himself a son of Irish immigrants who left Ireland in the 1910s when it was still a part of the United Kingdom.

Services will be held at Guerrero Mortuary, San Leandro, on Saturday, October 16, 2010. Jan will then be escorted by her children for her final trip home to England, where her ashes will be interred with her grandparents on her father’s side – George and Louisa (Oldham) Ball -- in Kirby Muxloe, Leicestershire.

In addition to her younger sister Christine Deas, who lives in Scotland, Janet is survived by all ten of her children and their spouses/significant others, twenty-two grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren: Chris, Maria, and his daughter Elizabeth; David, Narda, their children Joshua and Sarai, and great-grandson Justin; Joe, Jr., Pam, and their children Joe III and Cody; Thomas, Linda, and their children Rachel and Thomas Jr.; Louise Witham, her children Heather and Hillary Roberts, and her husband Fred; Janet Fitzpatrick, her daughter Marissa Link, her husband Gordon, and their children Nick, Max, and Iris; Donald, Ricki, and their children Corey, Jordan, and Kylie; Barbara Johnson, her daughter Rachel Holt, and great-granddaughter Jessika Holt; Robert, Pam and their children Hannah and Sam; and Richard, Monique and their children Daniel, Joel, and Skylar Mae. In addition, she leaves her nephews Brian Millard and John Ball, and her niece Shelagh (Ball) Hunter, all of England and children of her brother Bill; and her nephew Robin Merrifield of Canada, son of her older sister Margaret.

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Janet Mary (Ball) Judge was born on June 10, 1924, in Leicester, England, the second daughter of Col. John and Hilda Lucy (Kent) Ball. Upon finishing school, she took a secretarial course and worked for both Shell-Mex and BP. Still a young girl when the war broke out in 1939, Jan initially helped the British war effort by "fire watching" at night, and eventually joined the Land Army when she turned eighteen – modestly explaining that "It had an attractive uniform with no buttons to polish!" While in the Land Army, a critical civilian organization for England’s war effort that replaced those men who formerly worked in agriculture but who had subsequently been called up by the military, Jan worked full-time on several farms in and around Kirby Muxloe, Leicestershire, managing to return home only on weekends – when work permitted – by cycling up to ten miles each way. However, as she often put it, “The worst of the job was picking brussels sprouts on a frosty morning.”

It was while she was in the Land Army that Jan met her future husband, Joseph E. Judge, a native of Brooklyn, NY, who was a staff sergeant and navigator with the USAAF 44th Troop Carrier Squadron based at RAF Cottesmore, outside Leicester. The two were married on April 11, 1945, just before the war’s end. They were separated shortly after VE day in May 1945, when Joe was returned to the United States to begin preparations for action in the Pacific – an event that fortunately was precluded by VJ Day in August 1945. When the war ended, Joe returned to England to teach at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, for a year. During this time, the couple lived with Jan's parents in Nottinghamshire. Joe returned to the States to study for his Ph.D. at the University of Denver, and Jan joined him there in 1948 with their first child, Christopher, who had been born in January 1946 in Leicester. As it turned out, Jan was on one of the very last flights of European war brides to the United States, landing in New York on December 28, 1948, from whence she trained out to Denver – a city which she forever condemned for being “Too far removed from the sea.” It would be twelve years before she was able to visit England and see her family again.

Over the years, the family of Janet and Joe grew to ten children, in the process relocating from Colorado to California where they lived in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, and Ridgecrest. Jan would remain in California for the rest of her long life, finding frequent opportunity during her last decades to fly home to England to visit with her father, aunts, uncles, younger sister, brother, and cousins. After her husband died in 1991, Jan moved first to Berry Creek and eventually to Emeryville, where she remained until moving in with her son Thomas in San Leandro in 2008. She passed away quietly in her sleep early Friday morning, October 8, 2010. Although she had lived in the United States for almost her entire adult life, Janet retained her English (not British!) heritage, her English ways, her British citizenship, and her unswerving loyalty to the Royal Family. Her sense of Englishness was often visited upon her children, whom she often reminded “had not a drop of American blood in them!” This, because their father, Joe, was himself a son of Irish immigrants who left Ireland in the 1910s when it was still a part of the United Kingdom.

Services will be held at Guerrero Mortuary, San Leandro, on Saturday, October 16, 2010. Jan will then be escorted by her children for her final trip home to England, where her ashes will be interred with her grandparents on her father’s side – George and Louisa (Oldham) Ball -- in Kirby Muxloe, Leicestershire.

In addition to her younger sister Christine Deas, who lives in Scotland, Janet is survived by all ten of her children and their spouses/significant others, twenty-two grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren: Chris, Maria, and his daughter Elizabeth; David, Narda, their children Joshua and Sarai, and great-grandson Justin; Joe, Jr., Pam, and their children Joe III and Cody; Thomas, Linda, and their children Rachel and Thomas Jr.; Louise Witham, her children Heather and Hillary Roberts, and her husband Fred; Janet Fitzpatrick, her daughter Marissa Link, her husband Gordon, and their children Nick, Max, and Iris; Donald, Ricki, and their children Corey, Jordan, and Kylie; Barbara Johnson, her daughter Rachel Holt, and great-granddaughter Jessika Holt; Robert, Pam and their children Hannah and Sam; and Richard, Monique and their children Daniel, Joel, and Skylar Mae. In addition, she leaves her nephews Brian Millard and John Ball, and her niece Shelagh (Ball) Hunter, all of England and children of her brother Bill; and her nephew Robin Merrifield of Canada, son of her older sister Margaret.

Arrangements under the direction of Guerrero Mortuary Chapel, San Leandro, CA.