Judith Hughes Day

(May 15, 1941 – October 20, 2025)

Judy died peacefully with family beside her on October 20 after several weeks of Mt. Sinai Morningside care for a fall, brain bleeds, and AML.

Born in Chicago, raised in South Bend, Judy lived in NY, Hong Kong, Chicago, San Francisco, Tokyo, and Seoul. She loved family, friends, art, music, nature, and travel. She lived by her deep social and political convictions.

A pathbreaker, Judy was raised by her adored late mother, Margaret Hughes, after her father, Frank Reid Hughes, died when she was 14.

“Infinitely tenderhearted, full of love and wisdom, an exceptional beautiful soul”, Judy was also “courageous and steely” wrote a friend.

Illustrative of her inner strength, Judy told two Chinese soldiers trying to search our Lhasa hotel room one night “No you can’t” standing in the doorway until they left. She then warned other International Crane Foundation friends elsewhere in the hotel. The rest of us, returned from surveying Black Necked Cranes, later learned that the Chinese authorities were looking for three Tibetan monks who had escaped.

The first person to earn Scholarship Foundation of St. Joseph County support, Judy completed Purdue University undergrad and master degrees, taught, and joined a Chicago bank. She became its 10th woman officer among 800 men.

After a Nina Simone concert first date, a Shirley Chisholm lunch, and much more Judy married another banker and like spirit John G. Day in 1974, starting a 51 year union of the warmest mutual love and support.

In Seoul, Judy became the first woman on a Fulbright Commission. She absorbed Japanese culture building long term friendships when living in in Tokyo. She earned a second masters degree at Columbia University in Japanese art history with studies of Koetsu and Sotatsu’s deer scroll and Korean potters in Japan plus sneaking home-baked cookies to library classmates.

1992 in Hong Kong Judy co-founded Galerie La Vong, the first to systematically show contemporary Vietnamese art. She continued as a private dealer after returning to NY in late 1997 to the end of her life.

Starting before US Vietnam relations regularized, Judy visited Vietnam over 60 times, developing close relationships with artists, many among the most respected today.

“Profoundly grateful”, one artist said of “her kindness, encouragement, and her unwavering belief in the power of art to connect and uplift, her spirit and compassion will continue to live in the work and the community she helped nurture.”

Others spoke of “a wonderful friend for 30 years not only to our family but to so many artists and to the Vietnamese art scene itself….one of the loveliest, most thoughtful, and genuine persons we have ever met.”

Judy served 15 years on the NY Youth Symphony’s board and was also deeply engaged in crane, whale, and other wildlife conservation efforts. She touched many lives, especially her family’s.

She is survived by her brother, Frank Hughes (Jackie), their sons Frank (Michele) and Andy (Erika, Samantha, A.J. and Jacob), her devoted husband John, his siblings Tom, Karen, Barb Pinekenstein (Peter), Jim (Joe Cibulka), Janet Prokop (Jeff), and their children to great grandchildren.

A celebration of Judy’s life will be held at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church on Jan. 14 with an on-line link, then a shiva and wake.

The family asks that any donations be made to The Scholarship Foundation of St. Joseph County which helped give Judy her start.