Joseph Judge was born on February 10, 1909 at home at 269 East Market Street in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. He was the youngest son of John Aloysius and Bridget Mary Sheridan Judge. His older siblings were Marguerite Judge, Helen Judge (Mrs. Robert Kilpatrick), Mary (or Marion) Judge, and John Aloysius Judge. (His sister Mary died when she was six months old, on July 31, 1906). His parents owned a saloon at the East Market Street address.
When Joseph was six months old his father died at the age of 29 from a heart attack. Bridget Judge carried on running the saloon, and later a café at 569 S. Main Street, for several years even after her remarriage, on February 24, 1914 to Cornelius Mack of Wilkes-Barre.
Joseph attended local public school in Wilkes-Barre. Where he received his higher education, if any, is unknown but he eventually became a mechanical engineer. In 1930 he was still living at home but by 1936 he had relocated to Nutley, New Jersey where his married Wilhelmina Weisbrod, daughter of Valentine Weisbrod, who was a German immigrant. Joseph and Wilhelmina had one child, a daughter named Marguerite who never married. The 1940 census lists Joseph as working as a mechanic at the Worthington Pump Works in Nutley. Where he was subsequently employed is unknown but the family continued to live in Nutley until at some point moving to Queens, New York.
Wilhelmina and Marguerite both predeceased Joseph and somewhere along the way lost touch with Helen Judge Kilpatrick’s daughter Bridget and her son Robert and John A. Judge’s wife Mary and daughters Sara and Marian. Without any known family, at the end of his life Joseph went to live at the Caring Family Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Far Rockaway, Queens, N.Y. On June 23, 1992 he was admitted to St. John’s Episcopal Hospital in Queens where he passed away on June 30, 1992. The doctor attending him listed his cause of death as “natural causes.”
Because no next of kin could be found at the time of his death, Joseph Judge was interred at Hart Island, Bronx, N.Y. on February 3, 1993. He is currently survived by nieces Sara Judge Keckeisen of Topeka, Kansas; Marian Judge Chattin of Moravia, N.Y.; great-nephews Robert Carpenter, Nolan Ivory and Colin Ivory and great-niece Meghan Ivory.
Thanks to Hart Island for taking care of our uncle Joe.
Submitted by Sara Judge Keckeisen, May 2020
__and_Wilhelmina_Judge_Nutley__NJ.jpg)