Judy Bolton March 05, 2019 Share this obituary Sign Guestbook| Send Sympathy Card Judy was born with the help of a midwife in the Cambridge UK home of her young Canadian parents – doctoral student Jim Bolton, and Physical and Occupational Therapist Wilma Hall Bolton – on August 14, 1962. The family moved back to North America in 1963 where Jim continued his studies at Columbia and became an Associate Professor in Minneapolis. It was there that Judy’s little brother Tom was born.
These were tumultuous times in America, so on young Tom’s birthday, June 21, 1970, Wilma and Jim moved their little family to safer and more familiar grounds – London, Ontario – where Jim had been offered a full-time faculty position at the University of Western Ontario. Judy was a keen young student at University Heights P.S. and Orchard Park Sr. P.S. in London. Always fashion-forward, as a teenager at Central Secondary Judy flirted with a Gothic style while maintaining studies on the flute.
Her grades in sciences and maths were commendable enough to get her into the University of Toronto where she completed a B.Sc. (1984) and a PhD (1988). She furthered her studies at the University of Colorado led to with a Post-Doctoral Fellow ship in 1992.
Judy’s academic career took her ultimately to the University of Illinois at Chicago via Queens’ University (Kingston, Ontario). As Distinguished Professor and Head, Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, Judy managed a department of research scientists, mentored grad students, advocated for equity – specifically for the advancement of more women in science – and continued her research into chemical toxicology, focusing on post-menopausal women’s health. A piece of art that travelled with Judy to all of her homes, and embodied her management style, was a poster with Nellie McClung’s message, “Never retreat, never explain, never apologize.
Get the thing done and let them howl”. When Judy wanted something, she went after it with tenacity, diplomacy, and skill, and she changed people’s lives. The flip side of Judy-the-academic’s life was a delightful and surprising potpourri of her passions which included Siamese cats, fashionable clothes and organizational devices purchased with astonishing regularity on Amazon Prime (she was famous at the concierge’s desk for this), protest marches with Lynn, vividly colored paintings stacked two and three high on the walls of her beloved condo, ballet with Jonna, cycling with Linda, travelling with friends in the US and Europe, watching Rachel Maddow and MSNBC (which was always on, volume dial set to eleven, on her gigantic television), entertaining friends, family and faculty (thank you, Julia Child) with far more pots and pans than anyone should ever own, opera with Jonna, jewelry that featured pearls, impeccably manicured nails, attendance at Hall Family Christmases, and shoes that became more sensible after a tumble in her adored John Fluevogs resulted in a broken hip.
Judy leaves her father, Dr. James R. Bolton and his wife, Ingrid Crowther, of Edmonton, her brother Tom Bolton, his wife Jacqueline Taylor-Bolton and their three children, James, Sasha and Jacqueline, of Scarborough, step-brother Christopher Crowther of Edmonton and numerous Bolton and Hall aunts, uncles and cousins from across North America and the UK. All were inspired by Judy’s tenacity of spirit, her sense of adventure, her dignity and humor through numerous cancer diagnoses and treatments and her commitment to ‘showing up for the occasion’. Judy’s family is especially grateful to the hospitals, doctors and nurses who supported Judy with competence and compassion over the past 6 years.
And finally, perhaps even most importantly, the family wants to recognize – with deep appreciation – Judy’s “family of friends”. Without this core of steadfast female friends, Judy’s quality of life would have been completely different. They ‘showed up’ for her, they ‘got the thing done’, and they did it selflessly, constantly, and lovingly.
Judy could not have asked for more. Services honoring Judy’s life and will be held on Monday, March 11, 2019 at 3:00 p.m. at UIC College of Pharmacy, 833 South Wood Street, Room 134-1, Chicago, Illinois 60612. Services will be held in Ontario and Edmonton at a later date.
Although Judy loved flowers, she would have loved the idea that, in her memory, donations were made to the Judy Bolton Foundation at the University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Illinois Foundation for the benefit of the Professor Judy L. Bolton Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacology Fund, 1305 West Green Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA. Judy left our world a better place for having lived and loved in it during her fifty-six years. May we all strive for that, in her memory.
For further information please call 312-421-0936.
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