- Date Of Birth: July 4, 1946
- Date Of Death: August 12, 2021
- City: Texarkana
- State: Arkansas
Judith Lee Pate Townsend died peacefully Thursday in Fleming Island (August 13, 2021) after a long illness. She was 75.
Born in Texarkana, Arkansas, on July 4, 1946, a date known to the family as the “Fourth of Judy,” she was the only daughter of Helen and Woody Pate. Judy was raised in Shreveport, Louisiana, where Woody was an economics professor at Centenary College and Helen managed their home with love, efficiency, and cooking that lives on for younger generations in cherished recipes.
Helen and Woody instilled a powerful patriotic sense of justice, courage, and optimism in Judy and her older brother Tom. Ku Klux Klansmen once burned a cross in the yard of Judy’s childhood home in a futile attempt to intimidate Woody and Helen and their family from public support of integration.
Judy came to Palatka, Florida with her husband Bill Townsend, whom she met by chance in the Atlanta airport in 1969. Bill, just weeks from beginning a tour in Vietnam, noticed Judy reading “The Autobiography of Mark Twain” and they struck up a conversation. Bill was wounded in Vietnam, and they married shortly after his return home in October 1969. Bill and Judy celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 2019.
Judy put her extraordinary executive competence to work both for the family law office – which she ran – and for many of Palatka’s most caring institutions. St. James United Methodist Church and the “Bread of Life” kitchen were particularly important to her. Judy quietly and unassumingly served as treasurer of Bread of Life for almost 20 years. Bill and Judy retired to Jacksonville in 2012.
At all times, like her parents before her, she was a courageous force for the better angels of her community. As a wife, mother, sister, aunt, and friend, Judy proved endlessly that honesty and kindness and strength and humor can co-exist. She inspired by example those who knew and loved her to rise to their best selves.
She loved her children and grandchildren fiercely and spent her life instilling those values by which she lived and cheering for them at their baseball and basketball games, shows, and countless other events. Judy also loved the outdoors and spent some of her happiest times hiking with loved ones.
Judy Townsend was preceded in death by her parents and older brother Tom.
She is survived by her husband of 51 years, Bill Townsend; her daughter Lee Townsend and Lee’s husband Nico Olivares; her son Billy Townsend and his wife Julie Townsend; her grandchildren: Matias and Lucia Olivares, Collin Townsend, Ian Townsend, Corinne Townsend Trotter, and Corinne’s husband Bailey Trotter; her beloved sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law: Vicki Pate, Sophie, and Jimmy Ducote, Lois Ann and George Williams, Rena Townsend, John, and Kathy Townsend, Clay and Sue Townsend, and Tom and Denise Townsend; and by a host of loving nieces, nephews, and friends.
