Janis Judd

1943 - 2021

Judd, Janis
10/14/43 - 12/26/2020

Janis B. Judd, age 77, passed away peacefully on December 26, 2020 from complications of Parkinson's disease.

Janis was born in Moline, Illinois in 1943. An only child, the college-aged adventure seeker couldn't wait to escape her hometown of Huntington, West Virginia and in 1962 she took a job at a souvenir shop on the top of Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. There, she met her future husband, Adrian "Nick" Newens. After having three children in three different East Coast locations, the couple eventually settled in Denver, where Nick started an anesthesia practice. Janis and Nick divorced in 1973.

Janis later met Dick Judd, a Denver attorney. They married in 1975 and with Dick's two daughters, they became an extended family residing in Boulder. In 1999, Janis and Dick separated and she remained single for the rest of her life, residing in Boulder for the majority of that time.

Janis earned a degree from Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing in 1966. After practicing for a time as a surgical nurse, she left the medical field and worked at various jobs in the business sector as a bookkeeper and office administrator. In 1985 she earned a BS degree in technical management/business from Regis College in Denver, graduating cum laude. While studying, Janis was a management trainee at First Bank and ultimately became a bank officer.

A few years later bad news arrived: In 1992 Janis was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease at the age of 48 years old. Fiercely independent, she was determined to live life to the fullest despite the dire prognosis. Indeed, Janis lived without help for the next 27 years, only entering assisted living in 2017.

Though Parkinson's put a halt to her banking career, Janis continued to pursue her greatest passion: cooking. She studied around the world with culinary luminaries and enjoyed cooking lavish meals for family and friends. Her multicourse Chinese dinners were a popular auction item annually benefitting the Colorado Music Festival and she earned a reputation as a popular caterer among her Boulder-based circle. Janis also wrote three cookbooks.

Janis left Boulder in May 2016 to live near her son, Jay, and family in the Dallas area. Then, in October 2020, she returned to Colorado, taking up residence in Grand Junction to be closer to her youngest daughter, Jessica, and her kids. It was soon thereafter that Parkinson's disease finally took hold. Janis died peacefully in hospice surrounded by her three children.

Janis is survived by her two former husbands, A.F. "Nick" Newens, M.D. and Dick Judd, both of Denver; a son, Jay Newens, of Frisco, Texas, his wife Emily Lim and their children Leandra, Tiffany, and Benjamin; a daughter, Jennifer Newens, of Oakland, California and her husband, Paul Schwartz; a daughter, Jessica Newens, of Norwood, Colorado, her husband, Joel Coniglio, and their children Fiorella and Cecelia; a step-daughter, Dawn Judd, of San Francisco, California, her husband, Mark Donaldson, and their children Esme and Clara; and a step-daughter, Signy Judd, of Berkeley, California, her husband, Jonathan Wade, and their children Beckett and Osby.

The family is tentatively planning a celebration of life for the fall. In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to the Davis Phinney Foundation for Parkinson's: davisphinneyfoundation.org.