Judy Moramarco

Judy Moramarco, 74, passed away peacefully December 23, 2006, with family at her side. A resident and business entrepreneur in the Temecula Valley for 35 years, she was born Helen Barclay Walsh on March 16, 1932, in Los Angeles.

Known throughout her life as Judy, she attended Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles, where she was head cheerleader. After graduating from Big Bear Lake High School in 1949, she attended Arizona State University in Tempe, where she majored in drama. While on school break and vacationing in Palm Springs, she was discovered by Howard Hughes and signed to his RKO Studios as a contract player. Her roles ranged from demure to vixen. In 1951, she married David Schonleber, a handsome young contract player at Universal Studios.

As a single mother in 1968, Judy combined her innate fashion sense and winning personality with an indomitable entrepreneurial spirit when she moved to Temecula and established the area’s first women’s clothing company. The Grange, Ladies Boutique was located in the Rancho California Plaza near Old Highway 395 (now the Tower Plaza adjacent to Interstate 15). The establishment’s most recent incarnation opened in 1992 as The Grange 2, Contemporary Comfortable Clothing, and was located on Front Street in Old Town Temecula. Additional successful, shorter-term ventures included Grange boutiques in Fallbrook and Big Bear Lake.

The year 1968 also saw Judy’s marriage to John Moramarco, one of the Temecula Valley Wine Country’s pioneer grape growers until his retirement in 2000.

With the sale of The Grange 2 in 2004, Judy retired to Green Valley, AZ, where she nurtured a fond circle of new friends and was a member of The Green Valley Church of Religious Science. She relocated back to the Temecula Valley in the early spring of 2006.

Judy is survived by son Travis Schonleber and his wife Nanette of Honolulu, HI; son Tony Moramarco of Temecula; sister Mary Ann Beckwith and her husband Jack of Sun City; grandson Eric Schonleber, who is studying theater in Seattle, WA; granddaughter Anna Schonleber, a drama and dance student in Honolulu; stepdaughter Cindy Moramarco of Temecula; nephew Dr. Craig Salling and his children, Erica and Alexander of Sunnyvale; niece Victoria Goodwin and her children, Michael and Jacquelyn of Santa Fe Springs; numerous cousins; and many loving and loyal friends.

No formal services will be held. Remembrance donations can be made in Judy’s name to the Hospice of the Valleys, 28127 Bradley Road, Sun City, CA 92586, or to the Helen Woodward Animal Center, PO Box 64, Rancho Santa Fe, CA 92067.