Judith JoAnn Schimmel

After graduating high school in 1965 Judy met a boy, had four kids, and like many liberated women of her generation, decided it was time to move on from the starter marriage and get serious. While enjoying the leisurely lifestyle being a single mom of four perfect children, while attending college and working full-time as a bookkeeper at Kmart, she met Mark Schimmel. He was no blue light special, this guy was the Saks Fifth Avenue of men. Mark endured the delightful behavior of her sweet angels, held her hand through a difficult battle with cancer and then married her in 1982. Making their home in St.Paul, they soon welcomed another sweet angel to the brood. Soon after they began their cross country adventure following Mark's career, moving to Albuquerque, San Diego, back to Cottage Grove and last year to Prescott, WI. And if you've never been on a long car ride with Judy through the Rockies, in a torrential downpour, with an infant, you haven't lived.

There are so many great stories of Judy's sometimes difficult, sometimes heroic and sometimes magnificently normal life to share, but there are just things that made her, well, her. Having been in accounting and finance most of her career, she never met a math problem she didn't like. Most people grab a calculator, she'd pull out a postulate or theorem, she was analytical to a fault, was extremely well read and to hear her play the piano was divine. All these talents live on in her grandkids, a little pack of math loving, book reading, problem analyzing, piano playing mini-me's she lives on through. Talents aside, her real sport was shopping, hitting her stride every Christmas. The yearly tradition of listening for the muffled cries of small grandchildren under the avalanche of wrapping paper could be daunting, thankfully we always got there in time. The gifts were big, but her love was bigger. Most of all, she loved her family. She shared over 40 years with the love of her life, was proud of her kids and loved her grandkids bigger than any grandma could. She will be missed, but with us forever.

Judy was preceded in death by her parents Charlie and Grace, survived by her husband Mark, siblings Jan Wenzel (Tim) and Jerry Rohrig (Kathy), children Brian Ackerman, Carol Kehner (Justin), Scott Ackerman (Gretchen), Mike Ackerman, Kacie Klymm (Bryce), her grandchildren Hannah, Jake, Ben, Logan, Holden and Raeya, and her pups Greta and Gus (her favorite children) and many friends.