Judith Anne (Hezlitt) Cooper passed away on August 25, 2021 with her family at her side in Milton, MA. She was 78 years old.

Judi was born at Memorial Hospital in Morristown, New Jersey on Halloween in 1942 to Jack and Eugenie Hezlitt. Her family moved a couple years later to Eliot Street in Milton, Massachusetts, just up the road from the Hendrie’s Ice Cream Shoppe and manufacturing plant her maternal grandfather had established.

A bit of a rebel as a teen, she would regale the family with stories of her misspent youth riding on the back of motorcycles, listening to rock and roll music and cavorting with next door neighbor and future notorious art thief, Myles Connor.

Judi would marry and move to Abington, Massachusetts where she’d live for the next twenty years raising a family.

When her children were young she was a creative and dedicated Cub Scout den mother as well as a school bus driver. She was once featured in a full page article in the local newspaper as word got around about the petite young mom who could commandeer an enormous school bus while keeping the boisterous students in line. Her drivers seat had to be removed and re-welded closer to the dashboard of the bus so she could better reach the steering wheel and the controls.

A lover of chardonnay with a flair for party planning and a natural born hostess, Judi took pleasure in entertaining friends at her Abington home, occasionally hiring rock bands to play parties in the finished basement and encouraging everyone to dance!

In the 90’s she was an active member of the Salt Water Yacht Club in Hull, Massachusetts where she would take the lead in organizing parties and functions at the club. She loved cruising the bay and the harbor islands in her boat and preferred sleeping on the boat whenever she could during the summer months. She also enjoyed a number of ocean liner cruises to locales such as Hawaii and Mexico with friends.

During this time Judi ran her own house cleaning business catering predominantly to elderly adults in the South Shore area. She was devoted to her customers and was a friend and confidante to many of her clients.

As the new millennium neared, Judi helped design a home she had built on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and relocated there for a few years to tend to an elderly uncle who lived nearby.

Later she moved to another new home in Spruce Head, Maine in the state’s mid-coast area. There she’d landscape and garden, feed the birds, read mystery books and watch her favorite rom-com movies while enjoying the retired life near the shore for the next 15 years. Family and friends would visit her there often and from time to time take trips together further north to places like Acadia National Park and Prince Edward Island.

Judi is survived by her sister, Nancy Hezlitt who still resides in Milton; her brother, Don Edwards, a Warner Bros recording artist and performer residing in Hico, TX; her sons, Clint and Don Cooper and her granddaughters Celine and Haley Cooper.

She is greatly missed. A memorial will be held in her memory close to her birthday this October.