Judith Ann Hjort

Judith (Judy) Ann (Lund) Hjort was born December 9th, 1939 in Duluth, Minnesota and passed away from complications of lung cancer on July 9th, 2025 in Portland, Oregon at the age of 85. She was the only child of her parents, Donald W. Lund and Mildred Elizabeth (Koenig) Lund (later Findley). She was predeceased by her husband, Tom Hjort, after 66 years of marriage. He passed away in November of 2023, also due to complications of cancer.

While living in Minnesota as a young girl, Judy enjoyed ice skating on the frozen lakes near her home. She mentioned on more than one occasion that she would have to walk to school with heavy snow on the ground. She spent time with her grandparents, aunts and uncles at Rose Lake. She also took piano lessons during that time, achieving excellence, and continued to play into adulthood, playing from classical piano books and a book of movie soundtracks. Her renditions of the Minute Waltz and the theme song to How the West Was Won, among others, inspired her eldest son, Chris, to whom she gave basic lessons, helping launch a lifelong love of music.

After her parents divorced, Judy and her mother moved to Portland, Oregon in 1954, to be near her mother’s family. She graduated from Lincoln High School at the age of 17. She was a good student and earned a scholarship to Portland State University. Judy enjoyed the warmer winters and cooler summers of Oregon compared to those of Minnesota. Judy spent the rest of her life living in Oregon.

In 1956, while attending Lincoln High School, she met and befriended Susan Hjort. Little did she know that this friendship would lead her to meet the love of her life, Tom, who was Susan’s older brother. On New Year’s Eve 1956, Susan asked Judy to come over and play monopoly. Tom was there and this was the night that they first met. Liking what he saw, the next day he asked her to a movie (Baby Doll) and by March of 1957, they were engaged. They married on September 14th, 1957 and enjoyed 66 years of marriage until Tom passed in 2023. After honeymooning at Crater Lake National Park, they moved to Corvallis so Tom could complete his degree at Oregon State University.

While Tom was in school, Judy worked in the OSU registrar’s office. It was during this time when Judy became pregnant with her first son. Once her pregnancy started to show, her employer let her go which was legal at the time. Her first son (Chris) was born in December of 1958 followed by another son (Mark), in March of 1960. Her first daughter (Becky), was born in August of 1968 and another daughter (Wendy), was born in May of 1970 and this completed their family of 6.

Judy was a stay-at-home mom who raised four children while also managing the family home and property they purchased in Beaverton, Oregon in 1963. The house came with an acre of land mostly covered in field grass and blackberry vines. Over the years, Judy devoted considerable effort to gardening and landscaping, turning it into the beautiful forest it is today. She would dig up small seedlings she found and re-plant them in her yard. They grew into mature trees of all kinds creating a park-like yard that also shielded them from road noise and future development of the land to the north. It was crisscrossed with footpaths that she built and maintained using fallen branches to build small fences along them. Every year, after Tom would rototill a small plot where she planted a vegetable garden so that we had fresh peas, beans, Swiss chard, corn and other veggies whether we wanted them or not. She picked raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries that were growing on the property as well. Her apple sauce, always in demand, was out-of-this-world delicious and one of her kids’ favorite foods that Judy made for the family.

Judy was also a great seamstress. She made most of her own clothes and many of her children’s while we were growing up and could quickly repair anything on the spot. She was very creative and used those skills for crafting, which included needlepoint, painting, photography and making jewelry for herself and her daughters and granddaughters. She built a dollhouse along with furniture for it. She loved crossword puzzles and completed each puzzle that came in the newspaper every day. She also learned Sudoko and would work on those puzzle books if she ran out of crossword puzzles to do. While she was living at MorningStar (assisted living facility) for the last 13 months of her life, she enjoyed putting puzzles together and coloring in adult color books. She always kept herself busy with these hobbies.

Judy enjoyed trailer camping with the family and trips to the coast, which she combined with a photography hobby, hikes, and even an occasional cast into a forest stream. At the coast, beachcombing was one of her favorite activities. Her love of the outdoors was instilled in all of her children. Every year after school was out, her children could count on week-long vacations at coastal beaches in areas like Waldport, Neskowin and Bandon. Camping trips to Fort Stevens, Cape Lookout, the Breitenbush River and the nearby national parks were treasured by all. Other summer destinations included Sunriver and later, Black Butte Ranch where scenes of family fun were found on bike trails, tennis courts, and horseback riding.

Judy is survived by sons Chris and Mark (Melinda), daughters Becky Gray (Steven) and Wendy Hernandez. Grandchildren include Alex (Robin), Larissa (Trevor), Elizabeth (Matt), Monica (Chris) and Jeremy. Great grandchildren include Everett, Clara, Jed and Harrison.