Obituary for Jean Naomi Judge Ingham

Jean Naomi Judge Ingham passed away at home in Fairfield, Iowa, on August 2, 2026, less than two months shy of her 100th birthday. 

Jean was born September 15, 1926, in Mason City, Iowa, and lived in Clear Lake, Iowa, and Junction City, Kansas, before the family headed east to Baltimore, Maryland, in the early years of the Depression.  

After graduating from Eastern High School in February 1944, Jean went to work for the Social Security Administration, but soon switched to the US Geological Survey, where she helped calculate map points. She saved her money, and with the help and support of her supervisor and her minister at Govans Christian Church, she entered Lynchburg College in Virginia (now University of Lynchburg) in the fall of 1945. She graduated with a B.A. in education in 1949 and was a member of Phi Kappa Phi honor society.

In 1950 Jean married Gordon C. Ingham, Jr., the brother of a college friend, and settled in Bedford, Virginia.  She taught English at the historic New London Academy and coached girls’ basketball there. In 1957, with two daughters in tow, she moved to Alexandria, Virginia, while her husband worked the Seaboard Line as a passenger service agent. After their divorce, she became a single working mother, not an easy role in the 1960s. Jean taught physical education and driver's ed for 25 years at Groveton High School in Alexandria and also became assistant athletic director. All during those years, she coached girl's basketball and field hockey to many winning seasons.

Jean retired from teaching in 1982, and she always said that her life really began with retirement. She threw herself into a wide range of activities. She delivered Meals on Wheels for over 25 years, earned a golden hammer from Habitat for Humanity, volunteered at N Street Village in Washington, D.C., and supported them financially for over 50 years. She also taught ESL for many years, volunteered at Mount Vernon Hospital for over a decade, and tutored at Lorton Reformatory. She was a role model to many in the way she gave of her time and talents in service to others.

Jean had to be always doing, and she was the first to say how blessed she was to have good health. She amazed family and friends with her energy and willingness to try anything. In her sixties, she took tap dancing classes.  She began taking painting classes at a senior center and kept at it for 25 years.  She played tennis, biked, roller skated, square danced, tried clowning, and took aerobics.   

After retirement, she made regular visits to her daughters as they moved around the country--Alabama, Kansas, Arkansas, Florida, Ohio--and there were always memorable adventures and projects lined up to mark their time together. 

Jean passed on to her daughters her love of poetry. Her favorites (Longfellow's Psalm of Life and Day Is Done) became a shared language to be recited at the appropriate moment. When we were growing up, we spent Sunday afternoons listening to operettas, operas, musicals, and various crooners played on the old Magnavox stereo console.  We learned the lyrics by heart, and those songs remained another connecting thread even when other memories failed. 

Jean loved the beach, the night sky, tracing the moon and constellations, puffy clouds. autumnal colors, the smell of gardenias, the beauty of roses, hibiscus, and pink azaleas. She was obsessed with maps and always had to know exactly where she was at any given point on any journey.  She loved to get silly during charades. She loved word puzzles and cryptograms and was always creating “poems” for friends and family to celebrate special events. And she was an avid follower of Wheel of Fortune, a fact that her daughters incorporated into her headstone at Glenwood Cemetery in Des Moines.

Jean's faith was woven through all of her life's journey.  A second-generation Disciples of Christ, she was a founding member of Springfield Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).  In 1992, she joined Westwood Baptist Church, Springfield, Virginia, and her participation in the life of this church--her second family--brought her joy and fulfillment for several decades.  Here she found her dearest friends, and these were the happiest and most rewarding years of her life. She sang in the choir, attended Bible studies, taught Sunday School from time to time, helped with vacation Bible school, participated in the quilting group and women's mission group, and for a time volunteered weekly in the church office.  A high point of her life was the 80th birthday party and tribute given in her honor by her Westwood family. She was known for her thoughtfulness, her readiness to offer an encouraging word, her generous spirit, her willingness to serve, and her commitment to spiritual understanding. Her favorite Bible verses included Psalm 103 and Proverbs 3:5-6.

In 2017, Jean came full circle, leaving her home in Virginia where she had lived for 60 years and moving to her birthplace, Iowa, to be with her daughters, who were, as she told everyone, "her jewels."  She found friends and community at Grand Suites/Sage Independence in Des Moines and at Central Presbyterian Church next door.  Her daughters filled her last years with day trips all over Iowa, tulip festivals, operas, Christmas concerts, buffalo sightings, Bauders grilled cheese, jigsaw puzzles, and pieced quilts.  She refused to surrender to her body's decline, and she continued to force herself up and out, whether it was by playing balloon volleyball or walking around the block with her trusty rollator.  When even that was impossible, she found daily comfort and constant pleasure in watching the ever-changing sun, surf, and clouds at Dewey Beach, Delaware, through the webcam set up at the Atlantic View Hotel.    

And to the end, she could, every now and then, beat the contestants on Wheel of Fortune with a lightning-quick solution to a puzzle.  

Jean is survived by her daughters, Vicki Leigh Ingham and Dr. Cynthia Jo Ingham; nieces and nephews; and her beloved "second family" friends from Westwood Baptist Church in Springfield, Virginia. She was preceded in death by her mother, Bea (Beulah) Perkins; father, Herbert LeRoy Judge; two sisters, Carol Day Lockwood and Jacqueline Fulcher. Her beloved cat Tootsie, who kept faithful watch over Jean despite her own ailments, is already waiting to settle down with her for the bliss of an eternal nap.

A celebration of life and memorial service is being planned and will be announced on this website.  Those wishing to honor Jean might consider a donation to Westwood Baptist Church, Springfield, Virginia; N Street Village, Washington, D.C.; or any no-kill animal rescue facility.