Judith Ann Knox

Judith A. "Judy" Knox, age 84, passed away Wednesday, October 8, 2025 at her home surrounded by the love of her family.
Judy surprised her parents, John and Dorothy (Miller) Crabbs, by arriving six weeks early on February 28, 1941. She was a very skinny baby and colicky as well, so things did not start off easily in their Toledo, Ohio home. John worked for the SS Kresge Company and Dorothy was a housewife. When John enlisted in the US Navy in 1943, Dorothy and Judy moved to Bluffton, Indiana to live with her parents; Dorothy went to work in a radio factory during the day and Judy pestered her grandma. Judy could remember thinking that the grown-ups were acting very silly on V-J day in 1945 and she also expected her daddy to come home the day after V-J Day because the war was over.
John finally came home in February 1946 and we moved back to Toledo. John did well at his job and got a promotion so we moved to Cincinnati. He did very well at that job, too, so we moved to Lexington, Kentucky after another promotion. That landlord died so we had to move to another apartment in Lexington; then that landlord sold the place so we had to move to another house. Three addresses in Lexington meant three schools for Judy in Lexington in three years. Then John got another promotion and we moved to Grand Island, NY where Judy had the meanest teacher in the world and also got her first pair of glasses.
Then John earned a really big promotion and got to open a brand-new store in Rochester, NY; the Crabbs family got lucky and were allowed to stay in one apartment for six years. From sixth grade to twelfth grade Judy made friends with a great gang of kids and John taught some sophisticated New York teenagers how to make home-made popcorn. Judy was in Girl Scouts for a total of eleven years and going to the first national Girl Scout Roundup in Michigan in 1956 was a glorious event. But teenage tragedy struck in October of Judy's senior year of high school; John was promoted again and had to go to a store in Akron, Ohio. Dorothy finally moved to join John in January and Judy boarded out with a family she knew through Girl Scouting so she could stay behind in Rochester and graduate with her friends.
Picking a college in Ohio while living in Rochester was not easy. Judy wound up going to Western Reserve in Cleveland but only lasted one year. Then it was on to Kent State where she happened to meet a very interesting guy named David Knox. He thought it would be a good idea if she signed up for a teaching job in Columbus, Ohio and then maybe they could get married. It would be an ideal situation for Judy to support her new husband as he studied his way through medical school and planned his career as a family physician. (He gets the MD, she gets the PHT... Putting Hubby Through.) But after three years of teaching fifth grade in Columbus Judy had to leave that career and find a new one; the Ohio Highway Department hired her and trained her to be a COBOL programmer for IBM 1410s. (She got as far away from the classroom as she could.)
Then it was on to Midland, Michigan where David trained for three years to become licensed as a Family Practice specialist. During that time Judy became mother to Steven and opted to become a stay-at-home-mother. Then it was on to Wurtsmith Air Force Base (also in Michigan) to fulfill David's military obligation and David worked as a pediatrician for two years. Megan was born on the base and was our "bargain baby". Then it was time to pack up and move back to Midland again to run the Family Practice Program because David's mentor died and he was needed to keep the program running. (Have you been keeping track of how many times Judy has packed up and moved?)
Life was good but teaching eighteen young physicians in the FP program how to be excellent family docs became very wearying. Keeping up with all of the changes in medicine, the meetings, etc. became overwhelming. When young Steven made fun of his daddy going to meetings to plan meetings it really was not funny. During this time Judy developed a career with Dell Crossword magazines constructing Word Search puzzles which was glorious fun; that was a way to earn "mad money" to spend on expensive needlepoint and knitting yarns and other hobby items.
Then in 1977 Judy was once again in charge of packing up and moving, this time back to Columbus so David could go back to school, this time to study dermatology for three years. At age 36 she was telling her children that their daddy wanted to go back to school and we were going to go along with him.
In 1980 we moved to Marion, Ohio because the Marion General Hospital recruiting committee made a very good sales pitch. The Cleveland Clinic also made an excellent sales pitch for Dr. Knox, but Judy preferred living in a small town versus the challenge of living in the greater Cleveland area. Dr. Knox was persuasive in talking Judy into working for "six months or so" as his office manager until he could find the time to hire a real one. (He has always been able to talk his way into anything.) That "temporary" job lasted until the day the office closed down in 2011 mainly because we hired the best people to assist the good doctor and those employees were left alone by the office manager who only worked about three or four hours a week.
While she was not working hard at Marion Dermatology Center Judy was able to organize a chapter of Project Linus, a national charity that distributes hand-made quilts, fleece blankets and afghans to children in need. (Linus is the character in the Peanuts comic strip who drags around a "blankie" for security.) There were dozens of women in Marion County who worked diligently to help with this blanket-making in their own homes and they would bring the blankets to Judy's house where she would label them and then distribute them to Marion General's emergency department, Waddell Children's Village or to the Sheriff's headquarters. In twelve years over 3,000 blankets were distributed. The local program had to be discontinued because of an unfortunate change in national Project Linus policy.
Per Judy's wishes there will be no formal visitation or service.
Memorial donations may be made to Marion County Humane Society; 2264 Richland Road, Marion, OH 43302.
Snyder Funeral Homes of Marion are honored to serve Judy's family and online condolences may be expressed to the family by visiting www.SnyderFuneralHomes.com