Obituary: Julie A. Schwartz
April 21, 1960 -- Feb. 24, 2021
We are now without Julie, but she lives on.
In the mangy, neurotic stray she loved into a lap cat, she lives on.
In the friends she consulted, consoled and counseled, she lives on.
In the way she brought hugging and “I love you” to her in-laws, she lives on.
In the impact of her volunteering for Meals on Wheels, SMILES Therapeutic Riding, Powers Elementary School and the Welty Environmental Center, she lives on.
In the nieces and nephews and their children whom she taught to read, to be honest, to be caring and to know joy, she lives on.
In the granddaughter with whom she shared a love of floppy hats, Candyland and bird watching, she lives on.
In her sister, who accompanied Julie on countless road trips, coffee dates and garden center visits, she lives on.
In the two beautiful, intelligent, compassionate daughters who moved home to help their mother through her last days, she lives on.
In the husband she patiently molded into a more complete man, she lives on.
Julia A. (Disch) Schwartz died the morning of Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2021, in the embrace of her family. Breast cancer had metastasized to her brain.
She was born April 21, 1960, in Beloit, Wis., the second daughter of Roger and Donna (Green) Disch. She grew up on Hackett Street on Beloit’s west side, where after snowfalls she secured shoveling contracts with all the neighbors, where she ran barefoot through the gravel alley and where she hosted innumerable sleep-overs. She was an active member of Newark-Beloit 4-H Club, a cheerleader from the time she was 13 and a 1978 graduate of Beloit Memorial High School.
She began working at age 14, taking weekend shifts at Old Fashion Bakery in Beloit. It was the first of dozens of jobs. It was at one of her jobs--receptionist at Beloit Memorial Hospital--that Julie and Sid Schwartz met in 1986. He was a reporter for the Beloit Daily News and stopped at the hospital every morning for a list of admissions, dismissals, births and deaths. Eventually, he found the courage to ask her out, and she agreed. They spent much of their first date at Beckman Mill county park, a location Julie loved to visit all her life.
Julie agreed to marry Sid two years later. Unbeknownst to him, it was the sixth marriage proposal she had received.
They were wed May 27, 1989.
Julie was preceded in death by her parents, both of whom died in Julie’s and Sid’s home under Julie’s care.
She is survived by her sister, Darcy (Disch) Demos, Beloit; daughter Angelica (Matt) Delzer and granddaughter Azalea, Rome, Georgia; daughter Monica (Ben Tolle) Schwartz, Madison; husband Sid Schwartz, Beloit; nieces; nephews; great nieces and great nephews.
A private family service is being planned with a larger celebration of life at a later date.
Donations in lieu of flowers may be made in her name to SMILES Therapeutic Riding, N2666 County K, Darien, WI, 53114.
“Elegy for Julie”
By Angelica Delzer
My mom left love in her wake, like the iridescent dust of butterfly wings.
She could make anything grow.
Kids, cats, plants, anything.
Once when I was a kid, Mom was late picking me up from some after school activity.
“I’d never forget you,” she said after I’d buckled myself in. “I’ll always come for you.”
Mom often spoke like this, like a Hallmark card come to life. But to know her was to believe her. She was sincere, nearly to a fault.
She rescued only the most pitiful stray animals and learned strangers’ stories in the grocery store checkout line. She hated games with winners and losers.
In her last months, Mom sometimes saw Grandma in the room.
We thought she was hallucinating, that her mind was conjuring the comfort of her late mother’s company.
“I have my guardian angels,” Mom would say, serene as the ocean.
But we assumed she was seeing things, as if the human soul could be so easily pathologized.
We forgot,
when the sea salt in our cells calls us home,
the ones we love will always come to collect us.
