Afraid to tell teacher she was quitting, piano became her passion
Judy Morton of Kitchener Born: June 15, 1944, in Windsor Died: Nov. 28, 2018, of cancer
KITCHENER — Howie Morton first spotted the lovely brunette at the University of Toronto campus as she was rushing to an event. Howie was brave, but, perhaps, not brave enough to shout out and ask her to stop, to see who she was. The dream of ever meeting the girl vanished as he watched her scurrying away.
Howie had been heading to his cousin’s convocation when he spotted Judy and he was delighted to discover she was his cousin’s roommate. Returning a few weeks later to visit his cousin, there she was in the apartment, the girl he would marry on July 9, 1966.
Judy was born June 15, 1944, in Windsor, the eldest of two children. Her parents divorced when she was five and her father, Al DeSadeleer, took custody of her younger brother, Jack, while Judy stayed with their mother, Doris. In the summers, the siblings would be brought together and her father, a rather suave gentleman who remarried a few times, would take his daughter on two-week vacations.
Howie said Judy adored her father, he could do no wrong in her eyes though it was not an easy road for her mother who worked part-time and lived in a very modest rental space inside a relative’s house.
Doris remarried when Judy was 12, a difficult age to adjust to having a stepfather even though Howie said he was a lovely man.
While Judy certainly didn’t grow up in a privileged household, her mom was able to offer one gift to her daughter, though it might not have been intentional.
“Music lessons was all her mother could give her,” said Howie.
Judy, however, wasn’t very fond of being taught by a nun at the convent. When she told her mom that she wanted to quit, Doris agreed but on one condition: Judy had to break the news to the nuns herself.
“She was never brave enough,” said Howie. And so Judy studied, grew more than competent on the instrument and somehow, along the way, discovered the passionate part of herself.
“She just loved the music,” said Howie. “I don’t think she thought of it as a vocation.”
After graduating high school, Judy attained an associate of music in piano performance diploma as well as a bachelor of arts degree with distinction from Western University.
She had been living with Howie’s cousin in Toronto while completing an advanced diploma in primary education, which would lead to a career as a kindergarten teacher starting in Toronto.
Howie said his wife always believed in sparking the imagination of children, inspiring them to learn through play which at the time was still a relatively new concept in Canadian schools.
“I think she felt a lot of the system wasn’t serving the students well,” he said. “She wanted to get the kids interested in learning, teach them to be inquisitive, to get along with each other.”
After the couple married they lived in Mt. Albert where Howie was working at his father’s car dealership as an apprentice mechanic, salesperson, truck driver, whatever was needed. It was not a happy situation.
“My father was always firing me,” he said.
Then one day Howie went to a social gathering of Judy’s teacher friends, saw how much fun they seemed to be having, how much they enjoyed life and decided he, too, would become a teacher.
Howie completed an undergraduate degree at Carleton University followed by teachers college in Ottawa.
The couple raised two children, Heather and Ian, so Judy’s career in teaching was interrupted a couple of times while she was a stay-at-home mom.
Always, there was music in the household, mostly classical, at least until Judy
LIFETIMES
and Howie were visiting the National Gallery in Ottawa one day and Judy heard unfamiliar trumpet music being piped in. Who was that?
“It was Chet Baker,” said Howie, smiling as he recalled his wife’s instant obsession with the jazz great, how she collected all his recordings.
“She gave up (kindergarten) teaching when we moved to Huron County,” he said. “She taught piano at home and in the schools for about 10 years.”
Howie taught and became principal at the rural Howick Central School, retiring in 1999. Judy retired two years later though while still working, she began volunteering with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony volunteer committee. At first the couple would commute to Waterloo Region, assisting with fundraisers then in 2004 they moved to Kitchener, mostly to be closer to family but also the symphony.
Judy took over as chair of the volunteer committee in 2001 and she was on the executive committee as well as convener of the committee’s twice annual fundraising Card & Games Party since 2014.
Judy was also a piano accompanist for choirs including the Blyth Festival Singers and Fireside Voices.
She started with Fireside in 2008 as a singer and four years later, became the choir’s accompanist.
Fireside choir director Debra Lacoste, recalled “we had two volunteer accompanists right from the start, and when one of them retired in 2012, Judy approached me and told me she played the piano. I wasn't aware of how accomplished she was.
“From that point until the end of last season (June 2018) she was one of our two accompanists, able to play anything from Broadway medleys to 1940s swing tunes to sacred and classical pieces.”
Friend and fellow choir member, Judy Bullen, said “she was a very warm, caring person, very thoughtful, always trying to think of little things she could do for her friends.”
Judy also remembered all the special gifts her friend would hand-make, items everyone cherishes now that she’s gone. She loved gardening and had started exploring her artistic side, taking up water colour painting. As a couple, Judy and Howie were eager to start exploring the world once they sold their Florida condo and on their bucket list was a visit to her brother in Australia, a Caribbean island holiday, a river cruise and a trip to Portugal.
It would never happen. In March of this year, Judy began experiencing extreme fatigue among other issues. A medical exam revealed she had a mass in her pelvic area, a type of cancer known as mullerian and there was no treatment, no chance of survival beyond a few months.
As a family and with her friends, everyone made as many memories as possible with day trips and social gatherings. For awhile Judy felt strong enough to play the piano, often her favourite song, Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”
Judy died Nov. 28, 2018, and the Fireside Voices sang that song at her funeral as the final goodbye to a person who had enriched so many with her music and her friendship.