Judith Verene Dalmas

Judith Verene (Thomas) Dalmas, 86, of Wellfleet Massachusetts, passed away in the early hours of April 10th after a final quiet struggle with heart failure.

Judith (Judy) was born on August 16th, 1937 to Melvin and Frida (Meinke) Thomas in Omaha, Nebraska. Although Judy spent most of her formative years in Chicago, Illinois, her extended family lived further afield on a farm in Seward, Nebraska. It was in this rural setting that many of her cherished memories were formed including those of mile high hollyhocks and picnic tables teetering under the prodigious weight of shucked corn. Summer evenings were often spent tending to the horses, forging a lifelong love. Upon graduating from the Emil G. Hirsch Metropolitan High school in Chicago, Judy went on to study Fine Art, first at the University of Illinois and later at the University of California Los Angeles (1956-1959).

At UCLA, Judy met John Phillip Dalmas (1928-2015), whom she married in 1959, and with whom she would go on to to raise a family of five children. After leaving California in 1961, Judy and her growing family steadily made their way east, living along the way in Prairie Village, Kansas; St Louis, Missouri; and New York City, Piermont, and Nyack, New York. Judy eventually settled into a career as a high school art instructor at Bergenfield High School, New Jersey, where she worked for twenty years until her retirement in 1993. During this time, she developed her skill at painting and other forms of graphic media, creating large canvases of carousel horses and domestic settings, as well as her yearly block printed Christmas cards to send to loved ones. Alongside these pieces, she also worked continuously on intimate watercolors and sketches from school-affiliated travels to Europe. These trips she both spearheaded and chaperoned for her students year after year. Her first trip to Paris in 1973-and a visit to Saint-Chapelle in particular-was a high point for the woman who still identified strongly with the little girl on the farm in Seward.

After retirement, Judy and John moved one final time to their summer home and garden in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. Started in 1976 and largely built and planted over the years by family and friends, Judy invested much of her energy in gardening the grounds, not only planting her favorite hollyhocks but also expanding on her prized collection of hybridized rhododendrons and Japanese maples. In her twilight years, amidst her beloved garden and house, she would often regale her grandchildren with her memories of fulsome midwestern corn and prairie grass. She would assay the world just so, as you so happened upon her, digging into the coastal fair of whole lobster and raw oysters or a bit of sandy dirt to plant one more double petalled hellebore.

Judy is survived by her children, Kathryn (Paul) Connell, Rebecca Karlen, Deborah (James) Kassiotis, Victoria Dalmas, Thomas (Bretaigne) Dalmas; her grandchildren, John and William Karlen, Amanda and Amelia Connell, James and Justin Kassiotis, Isla and Theodore Dalmas; and her German Shepard, Wolke. She was proceeded in death by her husband of 56 years, John Phillip Dalmas.

A celebration of life/memorial service will be scheduled for Judy at a later date.