Remembering the late Judy Swift, native of Friendship NY
By her childhood friend Mark Hampton,
Our village, Friendship, New York, was smaller than most of the others in Allegany County, with perhaps all of 1,500 residents. Judy Swift, two years younger than I, was one.
My great-aunt, Maud, was another. She lived directly across the street from Judy’s family and was casually employed as their cook when both Judy’s mother and her stepfather had day jobs. Judy said, many times, “We loved your aunt Maude.”
Maude’s husband was “Uncle Burt” and, you will note, 12 years older than she. Burt had come to Caneadea in 1909 to build the Belfast viaduct, an Erie Railroad iron bridge over the Genesee River. Maude was an 18 year-old belle of the valley and the older daughter of James Ashley Scott, scion of the “fighting Scott” clan of Belvidere. (See Villa Belvidere, the colonial mansion built on a bluff above the Genesee by Alexander Hamilton’s brother-in-law.) By the 1950’s, Burt was a withered shadow of his former handsome self, rocking “Mrs Dubose” style on his front porch with a glass of whiskey, a silver spoon (for dipping, not spooning), and the radio. My after-school, weekly assignment, and Judy’s on other days, was to keep Uncle Burt company… often listening to “The Green Hornet.”
Judy Swift may easily have repeatedly carried off the Miss Friendship trophy had there been such a contest. I, on the other hand, garnered full marks for Mark’s marks but nada in the Judy’s sparks column. One of my classmates’s talents ran in the superb- athlete vein and Judy’s to varsity cheerleading from ninth grade on, so you can easily figure out who went with whom.
My brother, Tim, was in the high school class behind Judy and easily fell in with her group of friends because one of Tim’s good pals was in Judy’s class. Tim was more likely to attend a reunion of that class of ’62 than one of his own and he reported from time to time on the timeless continuum of Judy’s beauty.
Judy went from high school to the highly respected Rochester Business Institute and then to a long and successful career with Merrill Lynch. Upon retirement, she and her husband escaped from New York to the snowless golf greens of west-central Florida where (Nelle Harper Lee would be doubly proud) Judy was still playing decent golf at age 80.
On the morning after Superbowl LIX, Judy woke not feeling well (not the only ailing Swift that morning). Judy went to the hospital, and died that day. A number of reputable people who have been there and back again have reported that, “Dying is the easiest thing you will ever do.” May it have been so for Judy. Her passing will not be an easy thing for the many loved ones left behind.
