Judy Anderson

1941 - 2025

Mar 31, 1941 - Sep 11, 2025

Judy Anderson fostered people the way some people foster kittens. She never met a stranger and never hesitated to invite one home for dinner. "Like my grandma used to say, 'I'm happiest when I have people's feet under my table.'"

When she left this world for greener pastures on Sept. 11, 2025, Judy had fulfilled the last chapter of her life. In her downsized home, she was still making friends of all ages and, not surprising to her friends, cupcakes. They estimate she must have made enough cupcakes for every person in the western United States for birthdays, line dance parties, potlucks. You name the occasion and Judy was there with cupcakes.

Born Judith Ann Burkhalter on March 31, 1941, Judy grew up in the farming community of Antioch, GA. "The only things you could see from my house were the church and the cemetery," she said. When Judy was 15, the family moved to Claxton, GA., about five miles away, the fruitcake capital of the world. That move to a slightly larger world sparked an interest in seeing even more. Judy graduated from college and then started what she thought would be her life: the wife of an Air Force officer living all over the world. The family moved nine times in 20 years, from West Texas to Okinawa. She often headed up hospitality committees to welcome other new families.

During those years, Judy had her two children, Shane and Courtney. After the traveling ended, the family settled in Albuquerque and Judy started a preschool, discovering how much she enjoyed becoming part of the toddlers' whole families. Still, she had a sense there was

something more she was meant to do. Judy often thought of the small inns she and her family had stayed in while traveling in Germany and how much she enjoyed meeting new people.

Around the same time, Judy's son, Shane, was diagnosed with melanoma. As hard as he fought to survive it, he would die five years later, at the age of 31. His struggle to survive would cause Judy to reevaluate her own life. "If Shane could fight that hard, I could certainly fight to change my life."

With the help of many of the preschoolers' parents, Judy was able to divorce her husband of 35 years and start Anderson's Victorian Bed and Breakfast in the Far Northeast Heights. "No one thought I could do it," she said, "but help came from everywhere and stepped forward for me."

In typical Judy fashion though, there was more to come. Her love of life and community helped her cope with her grief. She became renowned for her July 3 parties, where she prepared brisket and fried chicken, and a dozen pies and cakes for scores of friends. And she opened her home every Wednesday, from October to March, for "Soup Night" making three kinds of soup to suit the palates of all the friends and neighbors who came. Some 30 to 40 people showed up without fail every week, bringing bread and dessert to add to the mix.

Over the years, many of the guests at her bed and breakfast became lifelong friends, but perhaps none more so than Jana Speck, a former Lady Lobo, and Kerry O'Flaherty, a world record holder in track from Ireland. With Kerry's encouragement, Judy took up daily walking and for about a decade, she logged several miles a day, proudly announcing the demise of each pair of running shoes on her Facebook account. Kerry was one of many international runners wanting to train at high altitude, and Judy offered a bed and breakfast that could accommodate them for weeks at a time.

Anderson and her daughter also volunteered as "zoo ladies" with the "Zoo to You" program of the Rio Grande Zoo, driving a brightly colored van around New Mexico bringing "portable" animals like hedgehogs and corn snakes to school classrooms.

Still, there was one more thing Judy had never conquered: Learning how to dance. So she joined a line dance class at a nearby senior center, and her home quickly became a party home to the line dancers, often using her spacious driveway as their dance floor. During those years running the bed and breakfast, Judy had one meditative, introverted activity: hoeing weeds. "It doesn't make a lot of noise, and you just are with nature and you're hoeing, and your thoughts are very clear," she said. "And you just keep hoeing and you keep thinking about what you need to resolve."

In the last chapter of her life, Judy moved to a smaller home, not that far from the bed and breakfast. She quickly made new friends but kept the old, of course, established new flower gardens, and... made more cupcakes. She was still as opinionated as ever, and stayed true to her liberal, feminist beliefs.

Judy lived life to the fullest, and tried her hand at anything that interested her, including even jumping out of an airplane on one special birthday.

As Patrick Swayze said in Dirty Dancing, "Nobody puts Baby in the corner."

This obituary was prepared with the advice and consent of Judy Anderson. Let it be said that she did, in fact, have the last word.

The celebration of life for Judy Anderson, who was happiest with people's feet under her table and who never met a stranger, was held, as she wished, in her home on October 11, 2025. There were many, many feet under numerous tables that day and, yes, cupcakes were served.

Anyone wanting to celebrate Judy's wishes in this world can donate to the Shane Anderson Engineering Scholarship at the University of New Mexico, a scholarship that Judy established in his memory. To make a donation online, visit https://bit.ly/4iNG5RZ. For paper check donations, please make your gift out to:

University of New Mexico Foundation

Two Woodward, 700 Lomas Blvd NE

Albuquerque, NM 87102

Please put "Shane Anderson Memorial Scholarship

(608460)" in the check memo line to ensure accurate

processing.