Amherst, MA – Julia Demmin, of Amherst, Massachusetts, formerly of Laurel Park, Northampton, Massachusetts, Champaign-Urbana and Danville, Illinois, died on Monday, June 22, 2026 at 3:38 pm at Cooley Dickinson Hospital after a brief illness. She passed in the company of her loving family and friends.
Julia was born in Danville, Illinois on December 31, 1937 to Thelma Lenning Laker and Samuel Ralph Laker.
Julia married Philip Demmin on September 1, 1958 in Danville, Illinois.
In 1973, she met the love of her life, Nancy Schroeder, and they remained together for the rest of her life. After Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage, the two quietly tied the knot in their living room, just before a Patriots game.
She is survived by five children: Herbert Samuel Demmin, Jacob Ernest Demmin, Jessica Anne (Demmin) Luchetti, Amira Rose (Schroeder) Davis and Odyssey Schroeder-Demmin. In addition, Julia had two sons-in-law, Christopher Luchetti and Michael Davis, and close family friend and bonus daughter Leilani McCallie. Julia is also survived by eight grandchildren: Veronica Demmin, Gianna Luchetti, Leonardo Luchetti, Zoe Luchetti, Olivia Demmin, Samari Davis, Jackson Davis, and Zachary Davis. Bonus granddaughters Nia and Sol Lowery-McCallie. She had one great-grandchild, Arturo Bailey.
She was preceded in death by David Laker, her older brother and Mary Helen (Laker) Skinner, her younger sister. She leaves two brothers, Stephen Laker of Oakwood, Illinois and Stanley Laker of Alcoa, Tennessee.
Julia graduated from Danville High School in 1956 with high honors. She attended the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana on a home economics scholarship, earning her BA in 1963 and her MA in 1966. She went on to receive her PhD in English literature from the University of Illinois in 1973. Her doctoral work focused on mythmaking in the poetry of Matthew Arnold and John Keats, leading to her dissertation, “Myth and Mythmaking in Keats and Arnold.” The UIUC English department’s IDEALS repository hosts her 1973 Dissertation. Her academic work and commentary on Eudora Welty’s literature has also been featured in academic resources such as Project MUSE.
Julia was a trailblazer. She attended college and graduate school while raising three children on her own. Her first job post-doctorate was the first of its kind, a “writing therapist”, who helped Ph.D. candidates who were having trouble finishing their degrees due to dissertation issues and the psychological problems they were having that kept them from moving forward. She was granted an MA in counseling based on the latter experience and opened her private practice, which she continued into her 80s. She was an editor of Accent, a literary publication at the University of Illinois and again at the Massachusetts Review at the University of Massachusetts for many years. She was an early part of the women’s studies program at the University of Massachusetts and a founder of the Feminist Counseling Collective. She was proud of being a lesbian in a time when it was not openly accepted. She also earned a brown belt in Karate.
Julia has been a resident of Massachusetts since moving to Hatfield, MA, in 1972, with her three eldest children. She loved everything about New England and made it her home for the rest of her life. She enjoyed traveling all over Massachusetts, bringing her family to different historic places. She spent many summers in Cape Cod, whale-watching, camping in Truro and going to flea markets in Wellfleet. Nancy and Julia loved to vacation in Ogunquit, Maine, where they would walk the beach and read books together by the sea.
Julia was an avid gardener, loving nothing more than a day spent moving plants and handling garden soil. She loved reading, the opera, the New England Patriots and March Madness. She was beloved by her friends, family, former clients and neighbors. Dogs and cats loved her and she provided a home to many beloved animals over the course of her life. Free with her opinions, she was confident, smart, articulate, impossibly well-read, cultured and funny. She began subscribing to the New Yorker magazine when she was a teenager and kept her subscription for the rest of her life. It is safe to say she read every issue.
She lived in spirit with the Dalai Lama “love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive”.
Memorial Donations for Julia can be made as follows: The Bail Project Attn: Gift Processing, PO Box 102592 Pasadena, CA 91189-2592; or Goodwin AME Zion Church, Amherst MA.
The family plans to hold a memorial service and celebration of Julia’s life at a later date.
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