Judith Marie Maher's Obituary
Judith (Jude) Marie Maher passed away on July 3rd, 2025, in Tavares, Florida.
Jude was born in 1955 in Detroit, Michigan, to her parents, John and Marie (Augustine) Arndt. Miss Jude, as she liked to be called, had a passion for family, water, music, and travel. She fondly remembered fishing with her Dad and sister Jannyann, learning to make Easter Bosh with her Mom, and later, water skiing and beach combing. She never left the beach without a bag of shells and sea glass.
As a middle child, she grew up with three older brothers, John, Billy, and Patrick (who preceded her in death), and two younger siblings, sister Janet and brother James, in the suburbs of Detroit. They were surrounded by a multitude of aunts, uncles, nieces, godnieces, and cousins. Hardly a Sunday went by that didn’t include a large family gathering, as the house was not a home unless it was full! She loved her family very much, and we know they loved her and will miss her.
At the age of 27, she became a part of the Coast Guard family when she married her husband, Michael (Mike) John Maher, on June 5th, 1982. Being in the Coast Guard family fit perfectly with her passions, as she, her husband, and their three boys, John, Joel, and Jess, enjoyed several Great Lakes air station assignments in Detroit, Chicago, and Traverse City, where one of her greatest joys, a granddaughter, was born. Additionally, they had a three-year tour in Hawaii and a tour of duty in Arkansas, where her husband finished his career as a recruiter. While at Detroit Air Station, she developed a lifetime of friends with an extraordinary group of people we’ll just call “dirtballs,” lovingly, of course. They, too, became her family and will miss her.
She and her husband retired and moved to Florida in 2022. A Celebration of Life will be held October 18th at VFW Post 4659, off VanDyke in Shelby Township, MI, from 1-4 p.m
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