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Judith Iden

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Born in Philadelphia in 1943, Judith “Judy” Iden, eldest daughter of Helen Flanagan and David S. Randle, passed away peacefully early on March 10, 2022, just one day short of her 79th birthday.

Judy spent her childhood and adolescence in the tight-knit community of Newtown, Pa.

At a high school reunion quite a few years ago, Judy and her friends decided to visit the one-room schoolhouse (yes, you heard that right – one room!) where they attended elementary school. Her friend Linda insisted on climbing the rickety wooden ladder into the tiny bell tower.

There, carved into the wooden beam, they found their initials “J.R./L.H.”, you could say, “forever friends.”

She was an avid swimmer for most of her life, swam on the Council Rock swim team and the Philadelphia Athletic Club swim teams. She worked at the Newtown Swim Club in the early ’60s. They cleaned the pools every morning and lifeguarded all day.

Judy was one of the instructors for the Red Cross swim lesson program. They taught hundreds of kids to swim, from beginners to Senior Life Saving. This all certainly served us well later in life, when upon hearing bellows from her husband Curt (a consummate prankster) and laughter from her kids, she dropped the phone in the kitchen and sprinted outside to save our dad from drowning.

Born into a family deeply rooted in the arts, it was no surprise that Judy tapped into her creativity to form a career in architectural design. She graduated from the Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts). She worked as a designer and draftsperson through the ’60s and ’70s until the mid-’80s when she formed a business in antique timber frame home building and barn restoration.

If you were lucky enough to work with her, you’d know that she had impeccable taste, an innate talent for design, and unsurpassed attention to detail and craftsmanship.

Lucky are her former clients, most of whom became friends, surrounded by evidence of Judy’s aesthetic judgment in matters large and small. She had the vision for what a house might be overall, and she guided all of the little details that threatened to overwhelm clients as they moved through the building process.

In her late career, she took great pride in being the only woman GC in her locality, and took to restoring the historic barns of Tinicum Township, which now thanks her fine work, will survive another couple of hundred years! T

he idea of retiring never appealed to Judy, and when she finally had no other choice, she made sure to bring a binder of her past projects to the nursing home, where she’d show off her restoration projects.

When her friends and family picture Judy, they see a woman with a closet of fleeces in every color, who loves taking long baths, cuts her own 2-acre lawn, enjoys hiking with her MeetUp group and gossiping with her “Stitch & B*tch” club.

Most of that was taken away from her when she suffered a stroke in 2019. Though she eventually recovered much of her speech and mobility, this marked the beginning a long road of declining health – and the isolation of the pandemic certainly didn’t help. F

unny though, after her independence was stripped away, her generosity of spirit shone through brightly.

Her thank yous were abundant and her losses were mercifully replaced with new loves like strings of beaded necklaces, festive outfits and a connection to her new community at Gwynedd and Springhouse Estates. Judy is survived by her children, Cally Iden of Philadelphia, Pa., and John Iden of Perkasie, Pa.; her sister, Pat Hawthorne of Baltimore, Md.; and her four grandchildren.

A memorial service for Judy Iden will be held on Saturday, April 23, 2022 at 2 p.m. at Buckingham Friends Meeting in Lahaska, Pa. Judith Iden.


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