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10/07/2022 08:00 AMJude Victoria Houpert, nee Victoria June Simmonds was born and given at birth to adoption and never knew the first and complete love of her mother. Tough times indeed for a little girl raised in the farms of western Massachusetts. Edwin and Gabrielle Brown, who so wanted a daughter, adopted Victoria June in 1947, just two days before Christmas, and two days after her second birthday, for a true Christmas surprise!
Jude was afflicted by a movement disorder, dystonia chorea, and suffered the missed diagnosis for years. She found her spiritual self and shared a heartfelt warmth with everyone she met. She studied art at the University of Cincinnati, then at Middlesex in Connecticut. She was a wildlife artist, creative with her development of media, working with pencil, charcoal, watercolors, or pen and ink. She wrote poetry and haiku, displaying her work throughout Middlesex county. She was fun and funny, beautiful and inclusive with all who met her. As a recreation director in several area nursing homes, she was the delight in a day for all whose lives she touched.
She is survived by her son Michael Hoehn, a firefighter in Manchester, his wife Danielle; granddaughter Mallory Botinelli, and two great-grandchildren; and by her loving husband her dear “Jimmy” who has cared for her and loved her for all these past 36 years.
A memorial tribute will take place at 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 8, at the Killingworth Congregational Church, where Jim and Jude married in 1986.