Judith Ellis Andrews of Panama City, Fl., died early Sunday morning April 12 at her home in St. Andrew. She was 80 years old and left behind 7 beloved cats and a younger sister with whom she shared life and retirement the past 30 years. She was a lover of God, a connoisseur of nature, an insightful, gentle person who embodied kindness.

She came to this area with her family from Fort Lee, Va., in 1958 when her father, as US Army officer, was sent to Korea. She attended Jinks Jr. High School for one year, Bay High School as Class of 1964, and Gulf Coast Junior College before going to Troy State College for her BA degree.

She was born November 1,1945 in Oakdale, La., to parents Mary Delma Ellis Andrews of Calhoun City, Miss., and Lewie Milford Andrews of Enterprise, Ala. Her father was assigned to the Louisiana Army base after being stationed at a base in Grenada, Miss., where Delma worked as Assistant Manager of the Base PX. She had taken the job after graduating from Mississippi State College in Starkville, Miss., she and her sister two of the first women to join the all male student body. Mutual friends introduced Lewie and Delma through a double date. They continued dating, marrying when Lewie received the new Louisiana assignment. For Delma it was a decision to marry rather than take the PX Manager position just being offered her.

Judy was joyfully anticipated and became an immediate source of daily joy, her mother always said, despite the work — including washing cloth diapers in a bathtub and line drying them — involved in caring for an infant in the mid 40s. She eagerly responded to attention, interaction, and little cardboard books, but was most intensely curious about what was outside the window. In her first year, she relished just lying on a blanket in the yard looking at the sky, the bushes, trees, birds. And at night, her father said, she stood starring out the window, pointing to moon and stars, haze, rain, babbling excitedly as she pointed to different ones. Sometimes she just watched in a quiet sense of amazement. Even in her earliest days she found nature interesting and mysterious.

Judith Ellis existed as a very happy only child for almost two years. When her father’s Army tour ended around 1946, her parents moved to Greenville, Ala. where they opened the first Jitney Jungle grocery in the area, built a house, and practiced spiritual life through the First Baptist Church nearby. Judy recalled sliding on wood floors at home, riding a tricycle across the same floors, getting as a treat an individual sized bag of potato chips at the grocery, going to Sunday School, sitting beside her father as he read the comics with her, going to the city park to swing and watch squirrels with huge fluffy tails, her grandmother and aunt from Tennessee coming to visit, and “ just being loved”. It was in Greenville, 18 months after Judy’s arrival in Louisiana that sister Louie Adeline arrived. Judy accepted her, and the new order, with interest which grew into love. Louie said she never remembers a time Judy did not love her, forgive her, show up as her best support. They were rich friends all their lives.

As the toddler sister’s aged, they easily shared experience, and knitted themselves together as family. Judy shared with her sister what she herself had come to enjoy, including how to look at and make friends with a flowerbed, ride a toddler scooter, run from a yapping puppy, choose the best color for a a coloring book picture whether staying in the lines or not, fit a big-wood-piece puzzle together, and a little later, how to read. She loved to read herself as soon as she latched onto words and how to put them together; by mid 20s, she was reading 4-5 library books a week — fiction and nonfiction on a wide range of topics. Her vocabulary was intricate, her intellect and her view of both life and world deep. She came to be very insightful and never lost that gift. Indeed, when invited to take a church “Spiritual Gifts” inventory as a middle aged adult, her highest score was in “prophecy”.

A neighbor foiled the Greenville adventure, the story passed down says. He wanted to join the Reserves for extra money but wanted someone to join with him so he kept pestering Lewie to join with him. He lauded the extra money for not much time a month and continually affirmed. “ Aww come on, they will never call us up. We just had a war.” After some time, Lewie agreed. Four months later their Reserve unit was called up.

Lewie and Delma sold their store and became full time military again assigned to Marysville, Calif., Douglas, Arizona— where Judy marveled at tumbleweeds twice her height rolling past, and at the colors and patterns of dust whirls crossing most anywhere. She joined neighbor kids playing cowboys complete with a banded western hat, boots, holster and cap pistols, became acquainted with fire-ants, participated in community birthday parties, walked with her father to baseball games played on a city field a few blocks from their house. But what stuck in her memory most was what touched her heart…a boy drowned in a pool near the baseball field, for example. A mother washing her son’s mouth out with a bar of soap in front of gathered neighbor children because he said bad words. Stopping by the town’s nicest hotel after church on Sunday, the whole family going in to get a newspaper at the News Stand inside, sometimes getting a sweet treat besides, father reading the comics spilled out on the couch next to them once home. They understood funny together.

Then the Army sent them all to Chateaux-roux, France where the US was building a joint Army- Air Force base as first line of defense in what became know as the Cold War. Since housing was not yet constructed on base, Judy, Louie and their mother spent the Fall with their Grannie Ellis in Huntingdon, Tenn., where the rural house on the outskirts of town gave her new visions of nature. The crops planted out back in green and browning rows just beyond the chicken coop were full of foliage at different stages and she watched them being watered from the nearby well, pruned, picked, cleaned, cooked.

The grounds around were full of worms, crickets, bugs and other each with a story. The free range chickens had their own space, their own peace, and their own drama further up from the crops. Tall colorful glads stood guard around the front of the house and a huge snake took up residence in the hollow of a tree at the road….ALL of which Judy found fascinating. The cool deep water well with long trough where watermelons were cooled before neighbors came for back yard slicing was a favorite place to stop by during the day. That water tasted so “pure and natural,” she’d say a number of time over her life. She started first grade at the Huntingdon school, and since her teacher was a neighbor on down the road, more than once visited the beautiful grape vineyard that filled the teacher’s back yard. Leaves and vines and dark blue fruit gathered in bunches delighted Judy like a masterpiece. The beauty in everything just amazed her. Indeed in the weeks before her 80th birthday she went outside to look around, noted blooms still on her Cherokee rose bush, flower beds with new sprouts, shaded spaces, breezes in the trees, and shouted “Wow!….”Wow!….” Wow!” over and over at each new noticing. Nature always thrilled her.

As did reading. In Huntingdon’s first grade she read more, longer, harder books than the cardboard story books she started with. She read them to herself and also for her grandfather in bed with a chronic illness that claimed him in the Not Long. Reading deepened her perspective. But so did paying attention. Judy always “took note”, her sister remembers. She took in, catalogued, understood. In Greenville parks, and Huntingdon yards, for example, she took note of how one thing depended on others, early lessons in how nature is interdependent. In human interactions she took similar note realizing that demanding is selfish and causes disharmony but allowing others to give or help unselfishly leads to harmony. So, rather than saying, “ Hand me the jacket over there”, she’d say, “I would enjoy the warmth of that jacket” and allow others to give. Or instead of saying “No, I don’t want that” when offered food or anything she didn’t like, she’d say, “Let someone else enjoy that.” Her heart was kind, said friends, neighbors, strangers over the years, prompting one friend from the 60’ to say, “Oh, I LOVE Judy!” when she heard of her passing.

Realizing nature operates similarly, Judy later read deeply and studied ecology, cared about the balance of nature and how it impacted “what God gave us” as she put it over and over in later years. She took every opportunity to prevent an imbalance in the environment around her because she believed an imbalance in one place harm Creation in another. As she grew in thanksgiving for the Creation God produced, the more she wanted to protect it. She had an ecologist’s heart believing one sprig managed well somehow restored all of creation. For example in her mid 20s, out for a daily survey of what nature was doing in her yard, she discovered a tiny sprig of holly on the edge of the flower bed spanning the screen porch. She believed it could become a giant, named it STRETCH, and talked to it daily. It did stretch. It grew to be taller and wider than the porch itself, gave nest to squirrels and birds and shaded the screen porch for more than 20 years until hurricane winds took it down. She argued for and lobbied for natural landscapes, over her 80 years

In France, Judy’s family lived in Paudy, an agricultural village established in1500 A.D., located some 30 minutes down small, curvy, crop-lined roads from the Army-Airforce base being built, where soldiers worked and children went to school. Their housing had been a village store on D’Argent Street, the business sector, but offered up to the US military as space for arriving soldiers and their families who had nowhere to live because family housing had not been started yet. Judy and family occupied the downstairs level of the store, converted to hold beds, a small kitchen, and living- dining space where the showroom once offered customers all kinds of fare. The upstairs housed one bedroom and small living space for another American couple with no children. All shared a bathroom at the top of the stairs and an enclosed patio at the back of the house. A house two blocks further down housed an American family with three children, one a teen, and a tiny space in the opposite direction housed a young military couple newly married. The men carpooled to base. The women made life in the village.

It was at a table in the converted storefront that Judy’s reading and creative arts flourished. She would draw and color for hours, her drawing became more focused, her coloring more experimental and by high school she had grown into a recognizably “her style” pen and ink pieces. In the chair next to the table she read school books, gift books from her mother and father, and aunt back in the US. She grew even more excited about reading after falling in love with the adventure of reading the Bobbsie Twins Mysteryseries and Roy Rogers comic books. She read them silently. She read them aloud to her sister.

Judy navigated the rest of first, second and third grades in France too, leaving before dawn with her father and a neighboring soldier to carpool in to the base/ school. One dark and foggy morning her father missed a curve and plowed into the corner of a French family’s stone house. All so easily could have been killed, everyone involved later admitted. The house was severely damaged, the car totaled, the Airman with them jaw broken to bits, Judy’s father ribs crushed, and Judy herself sustained a broken right leg and broken left arm. She missed a few months at school but worked to keep up at home despite casts on arm and leg.

Adventures with an elderly French woman from across the street gave new inspiration to her love of nature. She investigated Mme Poteeto’s lavish floral gardens often, accompanied Mme past the planted fields on the outskirts of the village to an orchard to pick cherries, wandered hilly, woodsy lots full of blueberry and blackberry bushes, investigated an ecological back yard lined by neighbor personal food gardens. One afternoon out in the back, she and sister both marveled at the straight dark green leaves of green onions planted in the next yard over, a short stone fence separating. The girls crawled over the fence to investigate and, learning that one bunch came up easily and had color and shape and smell underneath, they wound up pulling them all up to compare. The neighbor was outraged.

Spring drew the girls regularly into the natural back yard because it teemed with sprouts and buds of a thousand kinds, soil critters, and so much more. Judy watched the churning of things more than once daily because it was always different A few minutes later. She noticed a small snail with a translucent, pale yellow shell. That started the hunt and over the next month or so the sisters collected more than 100 snails with unique shells of intricate colors and patterns and placed them in a garden they had built for them on the enclosed patio. Not every snail qualified; only those with unique beauty. Louie said they spent hours and hours and hours watching snail life, making the inside haven better for them, naming some, enjoying how they interacted as they lived. It was great fun, Louie said, until parents decided 100 snails were enough and the inside haven had to go. Their father promised to give the snails to a new home…the neighboring French family would take them. It was not a real long time later Judy learned the neighbors popped the snails on their radiator and are them. Tears followed as she learned not everyone loved nature as she did. Indeed, even as a teenager when she helped her mother bury a dead bird found in the back yard, she cried brokenheartedly for the bird, but wanted to respect its life by caring for its remains…and her mother told her: “Go ahead and cry. That’s what makes you different from so many others.”

Indeed, years later when the family moved into their new house in Florida, it had pine trees but Judy and her mother sculpted what became a yard mowers declared “is like a park.” One of the first things planted were three seedlings sprouted from grapefruit seeds before they left Virginia. The grapefruit, bought at the base commissary, had been so delicious Judy’s mother was intent on having a tree in Florida. Only one survived and thrived and it did produce the unusually delicious grapefruit variety the family had expected. Judy went with her mother often to the 1950-60s plant nurseries around town to look, discuss, ultimately buy, bring home, and plant items. They planted pear trees, a wild plum, Crepe Myrtle, Ligustrum, evergreen Fir trees, a Willow tree, Wisteria, Banana trees, Elephant Ears, Lilies, and Roses on a trellis across the screen porch that became so lovely cars would slow, stop and look.

It was at the age of 8 in 1953, Judy’s family returned stateside for an assignment at Fort Lee, Virginia, living in a military housing neighborhood that back against a strip of woods where Civil War fighting took place and then open fields of long grass and a dirt road offering just a short walk through thick trees to The Dictator, home of an oversized cannon and mounds where ammunition had been stored during the War. She went to fourth-fifth-sixth grades in Prince George County. She read Virginia-history laden books, worked on crayon and colored pencil pieces. She got a new big sized bike, the old French bike from Paudy then too little and too old. She got new skates that took her across sidewalks linking the subdivision. She went to Sunday afternoon movies on the Base across the highway. And before the three year assignment was over, she got interested in music, in American Bandstand, in a regional Dance show that promoted music popular in the area. She learned about the titles and words, the beats and banter of what was happening. Together she and her sister learned to dance the Bop, the Jitterbug, the Twist in their living room, in front of their tv set. Judy was becoming a teenager.

It was also at Ft. Lee that Judy fell in love with her first cats—kittens from a litter born in the big wood refrigerator box placed at the back line where the woods began to store bikes. Her parents found homes for all but the one they kept— Tiger, aptly named. She loved to sit and hold, pet, and play with him as kitten. She was concerned about his feeding, giggled at his antics, loved him on her bed, and viewed him as family. He ride in the car and ate ice cream cones as the family readied him for travel. When the trip came he stretched himself across the whole middle back seat pushing sisters to cling to uncomfortable outer edges. But that was ok with Judy because, well, it was Tiger.

Judy raised some 25 cats over her 80 years, most to ages 15-16, a few 18-21. Tho each precious, there was a white Persian Josephus, a Maincoon Einstein, a black and white Charlie Brown, huge brothers Willie and Nillie, and Willie’s bestie BW ( black and white), a gray and white Pookie, a silver muscle bound Buster, Captain Midnight, Cinnamon who lived to 21 after diagnosed cancer throughout his body just disappeared, a small deaf gray Squirt, Brownie, Beauty, Jim, Boots, Marco Polo, Samuel, Gracie, Henry Harrington (alias Cuddle Puddle) and more, plus a number of kittens she adopted out to people with the criteria — I want a cat to shelter and adore, not a cat to entertain me.” She loved the routine if getting up and feeding whatever cat (s) were family at the time, the gathering around, the purring song as she prepared the plates. She enjoyed the early morning outside washing cat dishes, filling the huge silver aluminum pitcher with water for the day, touring the yard talking to trailing cats following along on each task wanting to see what she was up to. She knew their different personalities, recognized what they wanted or needed, accepted their love of her with patience. And she was always grateful for them, even one day a few weeks after her 80thbirthday suddenly shouting out: “Oh God, I LOVE the family you have given me. THANK YOU!”. She raised cats, nurtured nature every chance, and, when time came, took care of aging parents.

Her father’s new assignment to Korea brought her, her mother, and sister to Panama City, Fl., where she attended 7 th grade and St. Andrew Baptist Church. Tho she had always been in Sunday School or Base Chapel, it was at St Andrew Baptist Church that she was baptized on Nov 1, 1958, regularly attended Sunday School, Training Union, morning and evening worship, summer Bible School, special topic discussions, Sunday night fellowships and age group parties. It is there she sang in youth choir and later adult choir, participated in various mission projects, worked on a team leading youth at Home Mission Board sponsored Baptist Center across town. It is there she learned Bible truths, the character of God, the embrace of Christian community all culminating in, as she said over and over in her more recent years — “Lord, do with me what you will, what you want.” She lived by the affirmation “Your way is better than any other….Fix it your way….Bless it Your way.”

She praised God all her life, let the scripture mold her heart, prayed regularly for family, friends, strangers who caught her attention. She offered help, aided in person or in group. She sought to make a difference in God’s service. She was gentle, pure, aware, easily wanting the best for others, readily forgiving shortcomings of others, in love with Jesus and very much like His heart.

If you just met her in passing you might notice an little gleam in her eye. If you stayed and chatted you discovered a wide array of knowledge, insights, and wisdom. If you lingered longer you found yourself captivated by her sweet unassuming humor. Her sister affirms “She was increasingly interesting and always fun to be with.” One of their friends noted, “What a sweet thoughtful person she was. We loved her kind words. “

Tho Judy and her sister in childhood years went to the Martin Theater movies, walked with friends to St. Andrew drugstores for afternoon sodas, spent days at the beach with friends, ate seafood specials at Schilling’s Drugstore, welcomed the first McDonald's with business, went to the skating rink with friends, participated in church snd school activities, attended the Herman And The Hermits live concert, her sister remembers the fun they had from young adulthood on —regular adventures like day trips to Seaside from the days it was being built until Covid, early lingering breakfasts at the Marriott on the beach and reading in the plant appointed lobby afterward, breakfasts at the Gulf-side restaurant in an elite community just being built off Hwy 98 near Back Beach Road intersection, breakfasts at the Bruce Cafe inland where wind made the leaves of a huge oak tree at the front door tinkle like bells, day trips to early and later San Destin to poke around speciality shops, eat at bakeries and restaurants, sit on a public porch and read, visits to eat and enjoy the Gulf-side porch at Henderson Inn, visits with friends to State Parks, Pensacola historic and curiosity trips, visits to libraries between Pensacola and Panama City, frequent breakfasts and lunches at the old Howard Johnson’s turned Panama Cafe, eating at nearly every restaurant in Panama City, just sharing an ice cream cone or sandwich in the shade of some City spot.

They also made trips to Atlanta —one of Judy’s favorite memories attending a live Garrison Keillor show at Chastain Park — and explored it all, particularly its botanical gardens. They went to Savannah to soak up the history and enjoy the foliage in each square. They went to St. Simon’s Island and later Jekyll Island to experience history and whatever adventure might transpire. Judy agreed, her sister, said that “we go places like Atlanta to DO things, but we came home to Panama City just to BE.” She enjoyed both very much.

She was noted for her loving kindness all her life. She cherished cats and all of nature. She adored and praised God. She blessed the places and people where she showed up.

Though Judy worked in retail and later delivery for a short time early in her life — one company received so many customer calls about her “excellence and extra attention” and her kindness that it established an employee award, making her the first recipient— she much preferred the creative life around her interests and was able to live one.

Judith was preceded in death by her parents Lewie and Delma Andrews and is survived by her younger sister Louie Adeline Andrews.

Graveside services will be held Tuesday, April 21 at Evergreen Memorial Gardens on Highway 231, Rev. Hannah Garrett Johnson officiating.