by: Jamie A. Quillen

Hello. My name is Jamie Ann Quillen. The woman you are here to bid farewell to today is my mother, Judy Stavron Quillen Schulz. I am her second daughter. In regards to the death of my mother, I would like to tell you a few last lines of her many accomplishments and struggles in life and how strong in she was in these weak points of her life. I would also like to inform you of the positive influence in the lives of my sisters and me.

Growing up in a low-income family with six sisters and two brothers, she never had the prosperous lifestyle that other children had. She was forced to become completely independent by the age of 18 as her other sisters and brothers did. Just out of high school, she moved in a low-class apartment with four other girls. She lived on a tight budget, supporting herself until she met my father at the age of nineteen. Fortunately for her, he had already completed four years of college and had his career at hand. He owned his own business, called Alpha Electronics.

They married. My parents brought four daughters into the world. My mother used to stay home with us when we were young. She did not have to work because my father supported us. She was the room-mother in all of our classes in school and PTA Secretary. She took us to school, picked us up and had cookies and milk waiting for us when we returned home. Every Friday or Saturday night, she would take us all out to the movies, skating rink, mall or other fun places that we chose. She put us all in ballet, gymnastics, art and other activities. She had all the time in the world for us until about five years ago.

Just an average October day in 1989, she called my sisters and I together to inform us that she and our father were getting a divorce. She got a job at AT&T. My sisters and I understood that she didn’t have all the time in the world for us anymore because she had to work hard to support the four of us. I suppose this is when we started giving her grief. I don’t know if it was because we weren’t first priority in her life anymore or because she was never the head of the household and was, at this point, forced to be. Holding a low-income job, she would work overtime and on weekends just to be able to feed and clothe us. She worked hard to keep us up with the general necessities in life.

She became very secure with her job as a sales representative. She was so dedicated that she won the Circle of Excellence Award. She took a four day vacation to Orlando, Florida only to return and win another award. She then went to Hilton Head in South Carolina for Tops Sales and Achievement for a weekend. She also won a national award which was coveted by other employees called the Partner of Choice Award, given by the President of the company. Her position moved up two steps in her office building in Atlanta. When her supervisor passed away, she became supervisor in her place.

My mother finally remarried when she found the right man. She was active in church as she has always been. She was finally happy and settled in life when all that hard work went to waste due to a terrible car accident. But that’s not the way my sisters and I feel. Whenever we get discouraged because of failing in school or not getting promoted at work, we use the device which our mother used. We’ll just try harder the next time until we’ve earned what we were out to attain. My mother would never let us give up. She would tell us, "You may feel like a failure for not accomplishing something which you wanted to so bad, but until you quit trying, you are never a failure to me."