Judith Ann East Gregory Goolsby

Obituary for
Judith Ann East Gregory Goolsby
December 23, 1943 - September 5, 2024
Written in her own words

“The Big Picture”

Colors burst from one end of the quilt to the other-blocks that tell a story in stitches, beads, patches and paint. If there’s one visible thread tying it all together as I run my hand over the stitches and images, it is a sense of my mother, Bobbie Jean, and my husband Jim coming alive under my wandering fingers.

It could have ended up a quilt covering the entire pasture behind my great grandmother’s house in Illinois but instead it’s just enough squares to give my body comfort lying under its weight.

The first block at one corner shows a small appliqued crib in rich red and blue with subdued white stars. It’s the crib where I slept after my mother learned of the death of my father Aubrey Leonard East in May 1945 off the coast of Okinawa. Mother was suddenly a widow at 20 with a 17 month old baby.

Happier blocks attach to the first one with crossed stitches, blessed with grandparents, aunts and uncles who loved me without reservation and who were committed to making my mother and me feel their support. My stepfather Malcolm and sister Barbara are in threads on the edge. A block supported with strong threads that became my mother’s pledge to give me the best life she could, and she did.

More blocks of road trips with my aunts in a Studebaker to Louisiana with no air conditioning but laughter, sweat and a chest of ice cubes under my feet. Another trip with my sweet grandparents Mac and Leone McRoberts singing “I been workin’ on the railroad” from Louisville, Kentucky to Illinois.

Buckwheat pancakes that my grandfather made on Saturday for supper are in another block.

These blocks become a road map of a life.

A “Summers on the bayous” block shows learning to fish with Memaw East in Louisiana.

Red and gold threads and paint create the tenuous high school years with tiny images sewn in the blocks. Images to remember Louisville Seneca High School, ball games, cheerleading, sock hops, Frisch’s Big Boy hamburgers on Saturday night and good night kisses at the front door. A raw edged heart with one word embroidered in the center, JIMMY.

Centre College blocks full of books, roommates and parties, disappointments and successes. Dance steps practiced in the dorm after hours listening to Little Richard and Chubby Checker.
Graduation 1965.

First grade children’s hands cut from colored fabric bring on thoughts of teaching them to read and to love learning. As I run my hand over theirs I wonder if it took?

Marriage blocks with $15 a week for groceries in 1966, more blocks for Jim’s medical school years and years and years.

There are blocks for my children, grandchildren, tragedies and incredible celebrations.

I run my hands over cut outs of my own hands and feel the lumps and bumps of my age and that of my Artist work and author’s words on paper. Hands that have held my children’s hands crossing the street. Hands that would pat my grandchildren when they were babies and high five them now as they celebrate success. Hands that have held my husband’s warm hands in a movie theater at 16, on the steps of the dorm in college, at the front of the church on our wedding day, at the funerals of family and friends, and on the porch in every house we have lived in from Tennessee to Colorado to Texas to New Mexico and back to Colorado.

It’s a beautiful quilt worth keeping for posterity. It’s one that has warmed both my body and now my heart for eternity. 

Judi is survived by her loving husband of 58 years James Philip Goolsby, Jr. M.D, her son James Tate Goolsby (Stephanie), granddaughters Tristian and Alexia Goolsby, grandson James-Matthews Goolsby, daughter Jill Bevin Goolsby Baumhover (Brian), granddaughter Aubrey Baumhover, grandson Henry Baumhover, sister Barbara (John), extended family and countless friends. A Celebration of Life will be held on October 12, 2024 at 10:00am at Covenant Presbyterian Church, 3003 Northland Dr. Austin, TX 78759. If desired, a donation can be made in her memory to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation.