MONONA - Kathleen Therese Judkins of Monona died on Thursday, July 2, 2026, at the age of 74. She spent those years proving a simple truth: that love, done right, shows up in the details.

Kathleen was born October 4, 1951, in Shullsburg, Wis., and graduated from Darlington High School in 1969. The following summer, on July 18, 1970, she married John Judkins, and for 56 years the two of them built a life defined by devotion.

She worked for the State of Wisconsin for 35 years, retiring as Office Coordinator for the Equity and Diversity Resource Center at the University of Wisconsin, where colleagues knew what her family had always known: nothing ran quite right without Kathee at the center of it.

But the center of Kathleen was the gathering. Birthdays. Holidays. Any excuse to pull everyone back into one room. She didn't wait for occasions; she made them, and then she made them unforgettable. The food, abundant and made with love. The table, ready before you knew you were coming. And in the middle of it all, Kathleen, somehow convincing every single guest that the whole celebration had been built around them. It had.

She did not just give gifts, either. She studied you first, then handed you back a piece of yourself, wrapped. For her this was pure instinct, the way some people breathe, or notice light.

And then, grandchildren. Cashton. Elise. Whatever fire she'd been running on before turned into something closer to sunlight. Being their grandmother wasn't a role she played. It was the role she'd been training for her whole life, and she was, without argument, the best in the business.

Kathleen is survived by her husband, John; her son, Bryan Judkins (Mary Parmentier); her daughter, Amy (Peter) Brenner; her grandchildren, Cashton and Elise Brenner; her mother, Betty McGranahan; her sister, Mary Ann Welsh; her brothers, Steve (Mary), Dave, and Terry Larson; and many nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her father, Harold Larson, and her brother, John Larson.

What do we do with all she gave us? Only this: be grateful. Set the table. Buy the good ribbon. Make the ordinary day shine like she did and call it what it was: a life spent proving that the little things were never little. They were everything, and so was she.

A private family service will be held at a later date. Online condolences may be made at www.gundersonfh.com.

Gunderson East

Funeral & Cremation Care

5203 Monona Drive

(608) 221-5420

Kathleen Judkins

October 04, 1951 - July 02, 2026

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