Judith Meredith, A Funeral Director Whose Work Was Helping Others

To understand Judith Ann Meredith, it's necessary to know a little something about death and the funeral business.

It's not all long faces and dour personalities, and though the business undoubtedly has its charlatans, Mrs. Meredith wasn't one of them.

Before her accidental death at her home in Milton on Sunday, Mrs. Meredith, 55, was a funeral director at American Memorial at Mount Olivet in Renton.

She died of injuries she sustained when she was pinned by falling building materials at the house she and her husband, John, bought recently and were remodeling.

Of her business, she liked to say she loved helping people through their grief, and she didn't mind the downstairs work.

"She loved to visit funeral homes and old cemeteries," said her eldest son, Tim Kurth. "She felt it was an honorable profession, and she couldn't stand people who were in the business to make a buck."

She came to the funeral business by way of a divorce. When her second husband walked out, Kurth said, she decided to go back to school to make something of herself. Having already established a hospice in Reedsburg, Wis., Mrs. Meredith decided to become a funeral director.

"At age 40, with no college education and six kids, she decided to go back to school," said Kurth. "She worked as a waitress from 7 p.m. to midnight and then worked as a nurse's aide from midnight to 7 the next morning. Then she went to school and carried a full load.

"She used to hang her notes over the kitchen sink so she could read them while doing dishes."

Mrs. Meredith was born in St. Paul, Minn., and spent much of her life in Reedsburg. She established a hospice there and wrote two books, one of them a children's book on death and dying titled, "Bebe and Bobo Bury a Squirrel." She moved here in 1986 after being reunited with and marrying an old high school sweetheart, John Meredith.

Her first work here was at a funeral home in Kent. She was driving by one day and decided to make a social call. The owners offered her a job.

"She was very compassionate and she could empathize with people," said co-worker Jim Colt at American Memorial. "She was just familiar with all the pain and suffering people were involved with."

Mrs. Meredith attended Campus Way Covenant Church in Federal Way. She was also active with the Lions Club eye bank program.

Besides her husband, John, she is survived by three daughters, Leslie, in the Midwest, J. Michaele Dekker of Fort Carson, Colo., and Nina Mattoon of Des Moines; three sons, Timothy Kurth of Villa Park, Ill., Daniel S. Kurth of New Ulm, Minn., and Eric Kurth of Santa Barbara, Calif.; her mother, Ruth N. Adams of Louisville, Ky.; four sisters, Sandra Oakes of Portage, Wis., and Janice Danol, Lois Rountree and Marge Allen, all of Louisville; three brothers, David and Norman Adams of Louisville and Larry Adams of Santa Barbara; and seven grandchildren.

Visitation will be from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. today at Piper-Morley Funeral Home in Tacoma. A funeral service will be at 10 a.m. tomorrow at the Campus Way Covenant Church, 700 S. 320th St. in Federal Way. Entombment will be at Mount Olivet Mausoleum in Renton.