She shuffles down the same St. Petersburg streets day after day, wearing cocktail dresses, evening gowns and the occasional fur coat. She adorns her wrists with glittery watches and bracelets, and her fingers with large rhinestone rings.
Second Street North is always on her route. She walks it in sparkly ballet slippers, and stops at trash cans, always the same ones. She surveys their contents, occasionally reaching her jeweled hand inside and pulling out pieces of jewelry, purses and half-full cups of Starbucks coffee.
Downtown business owners stop to watch her in the middle of another workday. They muse about where she might have come from, who she might have been before stirring up myth and mystery in the BayWalk area.
“I think she must have been married to a doctor or something,” says Suzin Moon, a manager at Lola Jane’s Beauty Lounge. “She dresses up every day, I saw her in a mink coat one time, and she goes into the BayWalk and smokes clove cigarettes.”
Melissa Purcell, who runs the Green Fish Gallery across the street, has been watching the woman since moving her business to St. Petersburg from Tampa in April.
“She picks through the trash, but she dresses up real nice so she can’t be homeless,” Purcell says.
“Velvet cocktail dresses, Birkenstocks, nice jewelry, cute haircut — she must have a husband taking care of her because she’s getting money from somewhere. I just want to know who she is.”
Her name is Jacqueline Judge. She’s 59. She’s not rich. And she’s not homeless. She’s just an ordinary woman, with an unusual story.
Jacqueline grew up in Pittsburgh with her mom, her dad and a Spitz dog named Panda. Her family belonged to South Hills Country Club where they swam and played golf. Sundays, they went to church. Her dad, Jack, was a commercial photographer. Her mom, Muriel, a homemaker, was always effortlessly put-together, never leaving the house without a flawless face of makeup and a dash of Chanel No. 5.
Jacqueline played basketball and soccer. She listened to Johnny Mathis and The Beatles. After graduating from Baldwin High School, Jacqueline landed a job and fell in love. But over the next few years, her life as she knew it would change dramatically. Jacqueline was diagnosed with a mental illness.
Jacqueline’s family moved to Palm Harbor, Fla. Several years later, her dad died and her mom could no longer care for her alone. She moved Jacqueline into an assisted living facility where she could live independently with support from health-care staff. In the beginning, her mom would visit, take her for lunch and make sure her hair and nails were done. In 1997, the home was torn down and Jacqueline was uprooted again.
She was admitted to Hillcrest Residential assisted living facility on Fifth Avenue in downtown St. Petersburg in July 1997. Less than a year later, her mom died. A family friend continues to send her a $50 check every month. But Jacqueline’s life is far from what she was used to, growing up.
At Hillcrest, Jacqueline shares a living area and kitchen with 30 other people. Some are on medication. Others are on more medication. Some are Vietnam veterans. Some are retired. Some never worked.
Her medical records are private, but the pills she takes are meant for patients suffering from delusional or unorganized thought. In many cases, she can remember full details about her life. When it comes to passages in time, she’s less certain.
Jacqueline’s second-floor room at the Hillcrest is about the size of a single-car garage. She shares it with another woman, Linda. Jacqueline’s dresser is piled almost 2 feet high with purses— gold ones with sequins, camel-colored ones, black ones and her favorite, a plum-colored leather handbag designed by Liz Claiborne. Next to her single bed sits a side table, the top drawer filled with necklaces, bracelets, earrings and rings.
Just outside the bathroom is a rusty sink, and inside, a tub. Jacqueline was used to having her hair done at the salon where she would sit under the dryer and read "Glamour" magazine. Now she just washes it under the faucet in her tub. There’s no shower and nothing to dry her hair with. She finds herself constantly catching a cold from her wet hair, she says.
Low-income residents like Jacqueline can supplement their Medicaid and money from family with a cash assistance program called Optional State Supplementation. About $600 per resident goes to the facility for rent and care. A monthly allowance of $54 goes to the resident. With the $50 check Jacqueline gets in the mail from her mom’s friend, her monthly income totals $104. This money is supposed to cover any food outside of the basic meals served in the home, as well as clothes, personal hygiene and anything else a resident might want or need.
When Jacqueline gets her money for the month, she goes over to the Stop ‘n Shop down the street for a carton of cigarettes, then to BayWalk to treat herself to an éclair and a coffee.
She can’t afford most of the clothes sold there, but she might buy a piece of jewelry from Icing. When she runs out of money, she makes daily visits to The People That Love Mission. The Mission is a nonprofit organization that provides shelter, food, clothes and other items to the homeless and others on a limited income. Jacqueline goes there for her purses and gowns.
Still, the transition from upper-middle-class suburbia to a life below the poverty line hasn’t been an easy one.
She wakes up in the morning and eats breakfast with the other residents, often washing her hands at the employee sink and helping the staff with the snack and beverage cart. Then she goes for a walk. She strolls along the streets, unaware of the eyes peering out of store windows and watching her with curiosity. She browses shops, treating herself to some jewelry, maybe a coffee, when she can afford it. When she can’t, she just looks through store windows, and in trash cans.
After a former Hillcrest employee told Jacqueline she found some nice things in the Dumpsters behind some fancy apartments, Jacqueline started taking a peek for herself. She found a $1 bill, then a purse and a pair of sunglasses. When she sees people throw a half-full cup of Starbucks coffee into the trash, she grabs it.
“Sometimes I pick in the garbage and look for coffee,” she says. “I could get diseases from that. I shouldn’t do that, but sometimes I do.”
Hillcrest’s former owner, Diane Johnson, who sold the facility in June, says most of the residents look through the trash, but she’s surprised to hear about Jacqueline.
“You can tell them until you’re blue in the face not to do it, but they find treasures in there,” she says. “I didn’t know Jacqueline was doing it too, but it’s not an uncommon thing.”
Soledad Cine, Hillcrest’s new owner, says all Hillcrest can do is discourage the residents from engaging in behavior that can be harmful, but the residents are independent and can make their own decisions.
Jane Searcy, a friend of Jacqueline’s who worked at Hlilcrest for about three years and now works at another assisted living facility on Fifth Avenue, says although Jacqueline doesn’t complain, the transition from her former upper-middle-class life to the life she lives now has been hard on her.
“In some ways, I’m sure it was traumatic for her in that it was such a major change.
“She does like wearing nice clothes and shoes and things and it makes it more of a challenge,” Searcy says. “For some residents, it wasn’t really such a transition from what they were used to, financially and otherwise, but for Jacqui, definitely.”
Still, Jacqueline says she can manage. When told she’s become a fascination for some business owners in the area, she laughs.
“I’m not rich, I have no money. I get my dresses for free,” she says. “I have nowhere to wear them — I just dress up.”