Judith Sharon Winters

Judith Sharon Winters, a longtime resident of the Chatham-Harwich area, passed away at Cape Cod Hospital on April 22, with her son Dan Clem and daughter-in-law Michelle Cho by her side. Her passing ended an arduous three-month journey: an unobserved fall at home, a life-saving ER visit, a lengthy rehabilitation stay at Liberty Commons in Chatham, multiple trips to the hospital, hip surgery, and reconnaissance trips to assisted living facilities on and off the Cape. After three months of both progress and setbacks, she suddenly went into heart failure and passed soon thereafter. She was 81.  
Judith loved this part of the Cape. She first stayed in Chatham in the early ‘80s with her husband Stephen Clem and their two sons, Adam and Daniel, mostly at the Horne cottages just south of Lighthouse Beach. The whole family quickly grew to love Chatham and tried to get there for at least two weeks a year from 1980 through 1993, mostly to the cottage called Clamshell. In 1994, that love compelled Judith and Stephen to move to the Harbor Coves area of North Chatham after Daniel graduated from high school in Concord, where the family had lived for eight years. Judith put great love and care into making their fixer-upper house into a true home among the pitch pines and sandy soil, with gardening being her pride and joy. The family embraced nearby Pleasant Bay through kayaking and fishing, and Judith became adept raking for littlenecks near Morris Island. After Stephen and Judith ended their marriage in the early 2000’s, Judith stayed in her cherished home and continued to work on it. She welcomed Adam and Dan home whenever they needed to return to the nest. Later, she took great pleasure in visits by Dan, his wife Michelle, and their two children, Donovan and Eva, whom Judith adored. She loved being a mom and a grandma. 
In 2017, after 23 years as a year-round Chatham resident, Judith relocated to Harwich, where she attempted to make a new oasis featuring her usual mix of perennial flower gardens, window boxes, and tomato plants, though her efforts were limited by rheumatoid arthritis. She considered herself a loner but enjoyed chatting with her friendly neighbors, several of whom became her saviors after falls at home, including the most recent one in January. An undeclared Democrat, Judith liked to read, watch, and discuss American politics. She was active in Chatham’s political scene in the early 2010s, culminating in a run for the Select Board. Ethical and headstrong, she had many opinions and shared them freely, sometimes in the op-ed pages of this newspaper and others. She also enjoyed reconnecting with classmates from Endicott College, from which Judith graduated in 1964. A talented visual artist who continued her studies via classes at the Rhode Island School of Design when the family lived in Providence in the late ‘70s, Judith worked as a photographic stylist and illustrator before devoting most of her time and energy to motherhood and homemaking. In her Harwich dining room is a small stack of paintings she completed in recent years, despite her arthritis. She was inspired by the seascapes of Anne Packard and other artists, but most of all by the Cape’s natural beauty. She loved native corn on the cob, seafood, and Mom & Pops’ cheeseburgers.   
Judith will be missed but there is relief that she is no longer “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Dan, Michelle, Donovan, and Eva have immense gratitude to the many healthcare professionals, neighbors, friends, and others who helped Judith have a little more time. 
The family will hold a private memorial in the coming weeks.