RELATED: St. Thomas Aquinas Pastor Credits Flatlands Parish for Food Pantry Accolade<\/a><\/p>\nOne of her fondest childhood memories was watching\u00a0a\u00a0plane\u00a0land on\u00a0the\u00a0island\u00a0in the 1920s.\u00a0Flying is routine now, but 100 years ago, aviation was a novelty.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a girl. So many things go through your mind, \u2018How could this be?\u2019\u00a0\u201d\u00a0she\u00a0remembered thinking\u00a0as she watched the plane\u00a0come out of the sky and make a safe landing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As an adult,\u00a0Mends\u00a0cleaned houses,\u00a0owned a store,\u00a0gave\u00a0piano\u00a0lessons, organized community events, and spearheaded the construction of a new\u00a0community center\u00a0on the island.\u00a0She also served as a mentor and advisor to young people at St. Patrick Church, where they\u00a0called\u00a0her \u201cAuntie.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Many of her family members lived in the U.S.,\u00a0and she paid frequent visits to the states throughout her life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When she turned 100 in 2016, she moved to New York to be closer to family. She settled in Jamaica,\u00a0Queens,\u00a0and attended\u00a0Mass\u00a0at St. Pius\u00a0X. Three years later, she moved\u00a0in with Radix and his wife and has been there ever since.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While she said life is good, she laments the fact that old age has left her physically frail.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish I could move around more,\u201d she confessed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still, she is grateful for her life and for God\u2019s place in her life:\u00a0\u201cThe Lord is my light\u00a0and my salvation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FLATLANDS \u2014 Judith Mends, a parishioner at St. Thomas Aquinas Church, was born in Grenada on June 21,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-306710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Judith-Mends-nephew-and-his-wife.jpeg\")
Dr. Joseph Radix, Judith Mends\u2019 nephew, and his wife, Sylvia Hinds-Radix, say one of the things they admire most about the 110-year-old is her devotion to her Catholic faith. \u201cHer faith and charity, these are the things that really stand out to me,\u201d Radix says. (Photo: Paula Katinas)<\/p>\n