Prominent Gull Lake personality Perrizo dies
Judy Madden Perrizo, daughter of Minnesota resort pioneers Jack and Peg Madden and a prominent Gull Lake personality and business woman, died Jan. 17 at her winter home in Delray Beach, Fla.
She was born on Dec. 30, 1939, in Little Falls, where according to her family she was taken home from the hospital to her parents' first hospitality business at the Pine Edge Inn. Shortly after her family opened Madden Resorts on Gull Lake near Brainerd she spent all of her summers there - first as a sidewalk sweeper, then assistant shopkeeper in her mother's Sunbonnet resort wear shop, then as owner of the shop as well as manager of the family's Lumbertown USA historic restoration.
Judy Madden Perrizo
Perrizo played host to many celebrities, including LPGA golf legend Patty Berg; TV sports personality Howard Cosell; Bing Crosby's widow Kathryn Crosby; Waterford glass factory managing director Colm O'Connell; hockey coach John Mariucci; singer/songwriter John Denver; NBA basketball icon George Mikan; and many more.
An artist, she followed in the footsteps of her mother as a watercolorist and was instrumental in forming a women's art league on Pine Beach Peninsula near her lifelong ivy-strewn "Red House" cottage. She also followed her mother as a gourmet cook and enjoyed a friendship with author Julia Child. Perrizo was a member of Alpha Gamma Delta sorority at the University of Minnesota, Women in the Arts and the Humane Society.
The Sunbonnet Shop at Madden's Resort, opened in 1953, was the brainchild of Judy and her sister, Peggy. In and 2003 interview with the Dispatch for the shop's 50th anniversary, Judy said the idea for the store came about because she and her sister liked to shop and they thought it would be nice to have a women's clothing store at the resort. Their parents finally gave in and helped them open the store, she said, but the sisters were the main ones involved in the operation, ordering items and maintaining the store. Judy took over ownership in 1968, the same year the store moved to its current location at the Village Emporium building.
In 2003 Judy said she hoped the store's commitment to customers would help it continue for many more years.
"It's a happy industry, by and large. People come in here in a good mood, and as long as your clerks are in a good mood, they'll continue to come back," she said.
Services will be 11 a.m. Friday at the Church of St. John the Evangelist in Hopkins. Visitation will be one hour prior to mass at the church only. Burial will be at St. Thomas of the Pines at Madden Resorts. Arrangements are with Gill Brothers Funeral Directors, Minneapolis.