Judith Wilkes was a dedicated dancer, and dance was one of the things that kept up her spirits during a long battle with cancer.
Wilkes, who died Oct. 13, two weeks before her 75th birthday, said the dancing as well as the friendships with colleagues in a dance group were therapeutic.
She continued attending rehearsals of Colors, the dance group she belonged to, even after she could no longer dance.
Colors performed at local events, such as Oktoberfest in Larimer Square.
Wilkes, who lived in Littleton, died in a care center in Wheat Ridge. A private service is planned.
“She was a very talented dancer and a wonderful waltzing partner,” said Mike Krieger of Lakewood, who was a member of the now-defunct folk-dance group.
Sometimes Colors would ask the audience to dance along, and Wilkes was the first to show them the steps.
“I don’t care if you think you have two left feet, you can do this,” she would say, said a Colors friend, Joannie Pelszynska of Lakewood.
Wilkes was as upbeat about her illnesses – lung and then brain cancer.
“She never whimpered about her lot in life,” said her ex- husband, Stanley Wilkes of Wheat Ridge. “She was always positive.”
He said the two of them enjoyed every kind of dance, from square dancing to contra dancing – folk-dance styles in which couples dance in two facing lines.
Wilkes was a therapist in private practice, skills she used later in a lung cancer support group she formed, said daughter Sarah Chaikin of Denver.
Judith Groll was born Oct. 27, 1932, in Wilmington, Del., and went to high school there.
She earned a master’s degree at Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass., then a correspondence school and now online.
She was married and divorced twice. She moved to Denver in 1969 with her second husband, Stanley Wilkes, an aerospace engineer, when he got a job with Martin Marietta.
The two moved to Denver from Huntsville, Ala.
In addition to her ex-husband and her daughter, Wilkes is survived by three other daughters, Nancy Chaikin and Ruth Chaikin, both of Denver, and Leah Wilkes of Minneapolis; one son, Matthew Chaikin of Denver; five grandchildren; and her brother, Robert Groll of Wilmington.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
