Judy Auritt Klein, star swimmer and volunteer
When she was in elementary school, Judy Auritt would vacation with her family at Lake Almonesson in Deptford. Some cousins took their vacations across the lake, "and my mom kept showing up there" though it was a long walk away, a daughter, Anne Klein Farber, said.
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When she was in elementary school, Judy Auritt would vacation with her family at Lake Almonesson in Deptford.
Some cousins took their vacations across the lake, "and my mom kept showing up there" though it was a long walk away, a daughter, Anne Klein Farber, said.
It took a while, Farber said, for her mother's parents to realize that the child was swimming all the way across the lake.
"It was crazy" for someone so young, Farber said.
And it was the prelude to years of award-winning competitive swimming.
On Wednesday, Sept. 14, Judy Auritt Klein, 91, swim team captain in 1945-46 at the University of Pennsylvania, died at the Lions Gate, the continuing-care retirement community in Voorhees.
Farber said her mother was a member of the West Philadelphia High School Hall of Fame, the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, and the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame.
Born in Philadelphia, Mrs. Klein was raised in the Cobbs Creek neighborhood and graduated from West Philadelphia High School in 1943.
In 1940, her daughter said, the American Athletic Association named her a national junior swim champion.
Her best event, her daughter said, combined breaststroke, backstroke, and free style.
In AAU and college competitions, she said, Mrs. Klein won more than 50 medals.
After studying at Penn, Mrs. Klein graduated with majors in English and psychology from Pennsylvania State University in 1947.
She married Robert Klein, a civil engineering student at Penn State, in 1946 and, after he joined his family's stove-making firm, they moved with the company to Allentown and raised their children there.
After college, her daughter said, Mrs. Klein never swam in another competition.
Mrs. Klein was board of education president for the Allentown School District from 1976 to 1978, her daughter said.
In the 1980s, Penn State's College of Liberal Arts gave Mrs. Klein and her husband its Service to Society Award, their daughter said, and in the 1990s the university named them its Volunteers of the Year.
Mrs. Klein was a volunteer for, among others, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Franklin Institute, and the League of Women Voters. She was a member of the women's auxiliary at Albert Einstein Medical Center.
Besides her daughter Anne, Mrs. Klein is survived by son William, daughter Sally, a sister, and seven grandchildren. Her husband died in 2010.
Services took place Thursday, Sept. 15.
Donations may be sent to the Legacy Fund at Lions Gate, 1100 Laurel Oak Rd., Voorhees, N.J. 08043
Condolences may be offered to the family at plattmemorial.com.
610-313-8134@WNaedele