Judith Walker Laughlin, who with her husband, Alexander Mellon Laughlin, owned a house on Ocean Avenue in East Hampton for over seven decades, died at her New York City home on March 31. She was 92 and had been in ill health for a long time.
East Hampton was where she was “truly her happiest,” her family said. She was a hands-on gardener, cultivating hybrid roses and growing exotic orchids in her greenhouse. Fishing was also a favorite pastime. Every June for 40 years, the Laughlins would travel to Quebec, said the family, for the annual running of Atlantic salmon on the Moise River. “Some years were fruitful, and the family partook of their success with salmon feasts for months afterwards. Some years were leaner, and fewer fish were caught. In the end, it didn’t matter, June was reserved for the Moise, and to the Moise they would decamp.”
Mrs. Laughlin was skilled at fly-fishing as well. Later in the summer, the entire family would leave East Hampton and travel west to Montana, where a friend owned a small ranch bordering Yellowstone National Park, for two weeks of fishing on Slough Creek. The largest fish she caught there was a rainbow trout weighing five pounds. She proudly mounted it for display in the Ocean Avenue house.
The Laughlins were married for 73 years, having met in June 1943, two weeks before Mr. Laughlin went into the Army, at a house party near Georgica Beach. Her family had maintained a vacation house on Lee Avenue for many years. They married on June 20, 1947.
She was born on Nov. 10, 1927, in New York City, the daughter of Delos Walker and the former Nina Sebring. She attended the Brearley School and Barnard College. She loved music, said her family, and became involved with the Metropolitan Opera after her marriage, first as a volunteer, then as a managing director and member of the board. The family has season tickets to the Met, and made plans a year in advance based on the opera schedule. “Her love of the opera sustained her all her life,” they said, and many of her lifelong friendships were forged through her fund-raising efforts at the Met.
She volunteered at the Boys Club of New York as well, working at its 110th Street headquarters, and was on the club’s Women’s Board. She was also a longstanding member of the Colony Club in the city, and of the Maidstone Club here, where she played golf daily while in residence. She was “a keen competitor all her life,” the family wrote.
In East Hampton, she was a member of the Garden Club of East Hampton and of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. The Very Rev. Denis Brunelle of St. Luke’s will officiate at a celebration of her life later this year.
The Laughlins also had a home in the Bahamas, first on Paradise Island (formerly Hog Island), and, starting in 1959, on the western tip of Nassau in Lyford Cay, where they built a small house overlooking Clifton Bay and often entertained friends and family at dinner. “Judy remained a hostess extraordinaire until the end: always beautifully dressed, full of interesting conversation, and, most importantly, delicious food,” her family wrote.
Her husband survives, as do their two children, Nina Laughlin Bottomley of Rye Beach, N.H., and David Walker Laughlin of East Hampton, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Another son, Alexander M. Laughlin Jr., died in 2016. A sister, Nina Walker Wainwright, also died before her.
Memorial donations can be made to the Metropolitan Opera program care of Guild Hall, 158 Main Street, East Hampton 11937.
