Gwen Julie Powell's Obituary
Gwen Julie Powell, 83, of Berkeley, California, formerly of Baraboo, died peacefully in her sleep on Monday, June 18, 2018, after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease.
Gwen Julie Powell, known to friends as Julie, was born in Green Bay, on May 31, 1935, the daughter of Myrtle and Luke T. VanLieshout of Baraboo.
A certified national quilt judge who curated a landmark exhibit of political quilts at the Brandywine River Museum in the 2000, Julie was a member of the American Political Items Collectors’ Hall of Fame. She donated her collection of political quilts to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the New England Quilt Museum, Lowell, Massachusetts. To everyone who knew her, Julie epitomized the really fine person. She capped off decades of involvement in and advocacy of women’s rights by completing the 2-mile anniversary Women’s March in January 2018 in Oakland.
She is survived by her husband of 60 years, Robin; her sons, David (Pat) and William; her daughter, Amy Powell Sukys (Raymond); and grandsons, Benjamin and Alexander.
Her brother William, predeceased her.
A funeral Mass will take place at 11 a.m. Saturday, June 30, 2018, at St. Joseph Catholic Church, 300 Second St., Baraboo, with Father Jay Poster presiding. Interment will follow at St Joseph Catholic Cemetery in Baraboo.
Seldom did a day go by that Julie was not volunteering for something. During part of the 1980s, she was a volunteer at the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging of The University of Kentucky, 101 Sanders-Brown Building, 800 S. Limestone St., Lexington, KY 40536-0230. Especially fitting in lieu of flowers, would be gifts in her memory to support basic research on Alzheimer’s disease at that center, uky.edu/coa/adc.
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