Judith Kay Shannette
Judith Kay Shannette died on November 1, 2023, in Houston of ovarian cancer. She was born in Highland Park, Michigan, in 1941 to Canada natives Alexander Shannette and Venina Robinson Shannette. Venina was the sister of the Canadian golf course architect C.E. "Robbie" Robinson. Raised in Ferndale, Michigan, Judy graduated from Ferndale High School before attending Albion College and graduating from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor with a Bachelor of Arts degree in education. She was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority.
After graduation, she taught for three years in Warren, Michigan, before spending two years with Aramco, teaching grade school in Saudi Arabia. Upon returning to the U.S., she obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing from Texas Women's University. Following a stint in London at St. Thomas's Hospital, she worked as an R.N. in Houston, first in a cardiovascular ICU with Dr. DeBakey's team at the Texas Medical Center, and then as a school nurse at Young Elementary in Pasadena, Texas, retiring in 2005.
Judy finished nine Houston Marathons. She traveled as a volunteer with the Faith in Practice medical mission to Antigua, Guatemala, in 2007. She also volunteered with the Red Cross, teaching CPR and first aid and providing care in Houston for evacuees from hurricanes Katrina and Ike. Her interest in travel took her additionally to Russia, the Peruvian Amazon, Ireland, Croatia, France, Prague, the eastern Canadian coast, UAE, Mexico, and Kenya.
A devoted opera fan, Judy enjoyed live performances and broadcasts on the big screen. For several years, she volunteered as a nurse on call during performances of the Houston Grand Opera and the Houston Symphony. She also traveled overseas in the same capacity with the Houston Youth Symphony. In recent years, she faithfully attended performances by Third Space Music, a group of Houston Symphony musicians. Judy tutored grade school students in reading, and was in a Trotter Family YMCA book club. She loved walks on Tanglewood Boulevard, during which she kept track of her favorite Cooper's hawks and boulevard dogs. And if she missed a televised Michigan football game, she was devastated.
Breakfast on Saturday mornings with a continually evolving group of friends was one of Judy's pleasures, first at the Fountain View Cafe and then at La Madeleine on San Felipe. The men in the group will not be half as funny now, without Judy as a highly responsive audience for their humor.
Judy was diagnosed with and treated for cancer in 2019. She eventually suffered a recurrence and declined further treatment. She moved from her beloved townhouse to an apartment at a senior community, in the process giving up her cat, Simon, who was recently featured in the Tanglewood/River Oaks Buzz magazine, just days too late for Judy to see him there.
Judy was predeceased by her parents and by her brother, Gary W. Shannette, who was a professor of metallurgical engineering at Michigan Technological University. She is survived by her brother's widow, Marge Shannette (Bruce Pletka); by nieces Karen Shannette (John Caulfield) of San Francisco and Sue Taddeucci (Joe Taddeucci) of Boulder; and by grandniece Skylar Taddeucci of Boulder. She leaves behind many friends, neighbors, former students and former colleagues, including her dear, longtime friend and Aramco colleague Patricia Fischer Frey of San Miguel Allende.
Judy asked that there be no services.