Whether it was a gentle reminder, extra help in a subject or simply something to eat before school began, Judith Lusk had the innate ability throughout her 30 years of teaching to know exactly what her students needed.
“She used to buy these extra snacks for her students because she found many of them would come to school hungry, and she knew they were distracted,” her son, Sean, said. “I used to get in trouble for eating the snacks at home because she was saving them for her students.”
It was in her nature to go above and beyond, said Ann Marie Riordan, principal of Christ the King Catholic School in Chicago, where Lusk was a substitute teacher and aide for three years to Riordan’s son.
“I attribute his success today to her calming nature in third grade with him. I have seen him settle himself down and listen to directions the way she taught him,” Riordan said. “But it wasn’t only my son. She really got to know what each student needed and then went to help them work through it.”
Lusk, 69, died Sept. 17 of cancer in her Chicago home.
Born and raised in Chicago, she graduated from Longwood Academy. While a student there, she attended several dances at Brother Rice, where she met her future husband, John. The couple married in 1969.
After several years working for Prudential Insurance in Chicago, Lusk became a teacher’s aide and substitute teacher at schools near her home in the Beverly community while her children were young.
She found her calling in education and returned to school to obtain her teaching certification. In 1981, she graduated from St. Xavier University in Chicago.
She continued to substitute teach until she landed at St. Denis Catholic School in Chicago, where she taught kindergarten through third-grade classes for 15 years.
“She was a very thorough, caring and loving educator. She was charming and always a lady but lots and lots of fun,” Sister Elizabeth Lynch, a former principal at St. Denis, said. “She was also concerned about her students and made certain they had warm gloves, hats and scarves and something to eat. That would be done very quietly.”
After St. Denis closed, Lusk moved to Caldwell Academy and the Chicago Public Schools in 2001 and taught second grade for five years.
In 2006, she retired to take care of her ailing husband, who died a year later. However, Lusk returned to the classroom in 2012 as a substitute teacher at Christ the King.
“She was excited to learn herself, and she instilled that in her students,” her daughter Sheila Rossi, said. “And she liked getting to know each child and being creative and drawing on children’s strengths.”
Other survivors include her father, George Birmingham; daughter Jane O’Neill; sister Patricia Mahay; and three grandchildren. Services were held.
Patricia Trebe is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.