Judith "Judy" Marie Barker

Judith Marie Barker (Judy) passed from this life at her home adjacent to her only son, Brian, and his wife, Danniele. Danni and Brian embraced the opportunity to build her final home right next door and care for her as she slipped away.  

She was born March 5th, 1940, in Denver Colorado. She was the first born of six children of Leroy and Alma (Geary) Young.  Judy and two of her sisters were war babies and when the war ended in 1945, the family of five relocated to a farm between Coldwater and Wilmore, KS.  This truly was “Little House on the Prairie” life.  The family faced many hardships unimaginable today.  The crops failed and the house had no running water, electricity, or phone.  Dinner was cooked on a little wood burning stove and they learned to eat burned food or nothing at all. 

Judy wasn’t born to be on the prairie. She loved her books that allowed her to escape.  School was a long bus ride to a two-room building in Wilmore until a tornado destroyed most of the town in 1951.  

With all the hardships at hand, the family loaded an old farm truck and moved to civilization in Kinsley, KS. Judy prospered there and graduated from high school in 1958, married and had her son, Brian in 1959. She received her college degree in her forties and worked for the government until she retired in 2001.

Judy was blessed with the gift of gab, a bit of a loner, and always gung-ho for a political stand-off with anyone who was willing.  She was preceded in death by her husband Lee Barker in 2011.

She will be missed by four sisters, Pinki Liska (Gene Clark) of Pratt, KS, Linda Reavely (Bill) of California, Betsy Baker (Roger) of Woodward, OK, Debbie Wetzel (Roy) of Clinton, WI, and a brother, David (Kylie) Young of Rogersville, MO, granddaughter, Victoria Hatch (Patrick), great granddaughter, Coda Hatch, and a host of nieces and nephews.  

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