Judith F. Adams

Judith Adams, 91, passed away peacefully in Worcester on Tuesday, May 20, 2025, surrounded by her loving family after a long illness. Judith was born in Budapest, Hungary, on October 25, 1933, to the late Mihaly Strausler, deceased in Auschwitz in October 1944, and the late Elizabeth Eckstein Frank, of Denver, Colorado. Her life was defined by resilience and grace, a woman of European elegance and culture, a spirit of independence, and a love of world travel, English literature, and her beloved grandson.

Judith arrived by ship in Queens, New York in 1947 at age 13 with her mother, greeted by her loving and soon to be stepfather, Laszlo “Leslie” Frank. Shortly after, her brother, James Stephen Frank, was born, and Judith dove into her studies, learning English and graduating from Andrew Jackson High School, in St. Albans, Queens. She attended Hunter College and graduated in three years in 1955 with Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Home Economics Education, specializing in nutrition, becoming a Registered Dietician at the Medical Arts Center in New York City.

At age 23, she defied norms of the 1950’s and began three years of world travel with a friend, circled the globe from Europe to India, studied for a year at the Sorbonne in Paris. She then worked for the US Naval Station Hospital in Naples, Italy, as the Chief Dietician, where she met her first husband, Dr. Kenneth W. Adams, M.D., the Chief Medical office of the Royal Canadian Air Force (deceased). They lived in Vancouver and Montreal, where her daughter, Michelle Francoise, was born in 1967, and moved to upstate New York in 1971, where her husband opened his Ophthalmology practice. While a stay at home mother, she completed a second Master’s in Dramatic Literature from the University of Montreal in 1972.

Judith went on to live in New York City for many years, working for the Rockefeller Foundation and the New York City Board of Education, where she retired as a Home Economics teacher. She enjoying theatre, museums, art galleries and weekly bridge playing gatherings, and often entertained at home with her fine cooking and baking, setting a table with the utmost of care and refinement.

Judith moved to Denver in 1979 with her daughter, where her parents, brother and nephews resided, working in food service and real estate, meeting her second husband, James C. Gates, a United Airlines Pilot, from Durango, Colorado (deceased). They enjoyed traveling, fine French restaurants, attending church and Sunday brunches, and he adored her cooking. After a brief time in St. Petersburg, Florida in the late 1990’s, she returned to Denver in 2000, her favorite place to live, where she loved the mountains, skiing, hiking, and daily Summer swims. She was an avid walker all her life, often joking that she was not in the least way athletic, that she “couldn’t hit a ball!”

After retirement, she developed an avid Interest in business and finance, managed her own investments, consumed business news and was as a lifelong reader of the New York Times. She enjoyed hosting St. Patrick’s Day lunches, and once rented a museum in Montreal for an Arabian Knights themed ball. She was an active member of St. John’s Cathedral in Denver, and was confirmed as an Episcopalian in 2006. She was a member of Mensa International and the International High IQ Society, enjoying their lectures and attending and hosting social functions. As a lifelong traveler, her favorite cities were Paris, Singapore and Sydney, she visited six continents, most every cathedral in France, dozens of small villages in Argentina, and enjoyed transatlantic cruises in her later life. Her feelings about travel were that “Everybody should do it!”

Judith moved to Worcester, Massachusetts in 2018 to be near her daughter’s family, and remained an international traveler, taking her last solo cruise to Spain at age 88. She and her daughter loved visiting cafes, enjoyed pastries locally and in the North End, took in Boston’s theatre, ballets and museums. She loved her morning cup of coffee, which she enjoyed peacefully until the end of her life. Judith is survived by her adoring daughter, Michelle (Adams) Grasso and devoted son-in-law, Christopher Grasso, and her only grandchild and the light of her life, Matthew Grasso, of Westborough; her brother, James Frank, of Denver, Colorado and his wife, Deborah Reynolds Frank; nephews David Frank, of Rye Brook, New York; and Eric Frank, of Denver, and their beautiful families.

She will be remembered by her loved ones as someone who “always wanted to be interesting,” a dignified woman who felt it was important to look nice and be well groomed for any occasion. She was a brilliant soul, a child of the Holocaust who loved her immediate family, despite unimaginable loss and horror as a child living in Budapest from 1933 to 1947 during WWII. She held lifelong grief for her father and two young male cousins and many family members who perished at Auschwitz, and memorialized her father at the Holocaust Tree of Life Memorial at the Dohany Street Synagogue in Budapest. Once Budapest became free of the Soviets after the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, she returned yearly to visit her aunts and uncles, and to enjoy her home city and the beauty of the Danube, and its pastry shops and lively theatre scene.

The family would like to thank Notre Dame Hospice Care and the Rose Monahan Hospice Home for their compassion and support, Dr. Tony Samaha, MD, for his kindness and wisdom, and the warmhearted staff at the Reliant Infusion Center in Worcester.

In lieu of flowers, Judith’s expressed wishes were for donations to The Evangelical High School Foundation in Budapest, which supports her former Lutheran primary school, now the Budapest-Fasor Evangelical High School. To facilitate the international payment process, donations may be made by check to the Judith Adams Memorial Fund, and mailed to Michelle Grasso, 56 Adams Street, Westborough, MA 01581. Donations will be wired collectively.

The family will hold calling hours on Thursday, May 29, from 10:00am – 11:30am at the Pickering & Son Funeral Home, in Westborough, with a Memorial Service at the Funeral Home at 11:30am. Burial to immediately follow at the Pine Grove Cemetery, Westborough.