Julia Billips

August 16, 1954 - December 14, 2019

Julia Mae Billips, 65, of Kankakee, passed away Saturday, December 14, 2019 at AMITA Health St. Mary’s Hospital. Visitation will be Saturday, December 21, 2019 from 11:00 A.M. until time of funeral services at 12:00 P.M. at Lax Mortuary. Douglas Willingham will officiate. Cremation rites will be accorded. Julia Mae Billips (Billups) was born August 16, 1954 to Claude Lee and Drucilla Billups (nee Bracey) in Hughes, Arkansas. She is the only child of this union, as this was both their second marriages. She is the youngest of Drucilla’s children; her siblings Bessie, Leonia, Albert (Joe), James, Gloria (Doll) and Blanchie. Julia accepted Christ in her youth and was baptized at 10 years old. She grew up sharecropping with her family in Arkansas and, seeing there wasn’t much to offer her, her parents sent her to live with her sisters up north in Illinois. Julia laid eyes on Kankakee, Illinois in the summer of 1969. She continued high school at Westview and then welcomed her first child Michelle in February 1971. Soon, she had four children that she raised on her own. Marshall, Stephanie, and Curtis all came along in 1973, 1975, and 1976 respectively. Julia loved her immediate and extended family very much. She adored attending family functions, good music, community cooking for holidays, gaming nights, and just having her house full of as many people as possible. A full house is a happy home for her. She loved to laugh and could keep the family in stitches for hours. Julia was always there to lend an ear, share her shoulder to cry on, or give you a loving reality check without judging you. Her favorite saying “you’re as young as you feel” was the absolute truth for her. Being disabled early in life, she could not work and spent her life as a loving homemaker and proud grandmother. She did not let sickness bring her down and always had a smile to share with everyone. Besides her children, she leaves to cherish her memory several grandchildren, great-grandchildren, her older sister Bessie Willingham, two brothers-in-law, John Calmes and Albert Hairston, son-in-law Kevin Taylor (Michelle) and a multitude of nieces, nephews, and cousins. She was preceded in death by her parents, sisters, Gloria Calmes, Leonia Green, and Blanchie Hairston, her brothers, James and Albert Glenn, and two nieces Bobbie Jean Price and Shawanda Hines. There is no way to sum a life in paragraphs, so if you have special memories of her, share them with yourselves and the family. Immortality is reached in the mind and heart, and she definitely left an impression on those she touched. She may be absent with us but is always near. Shine on, Mom. We love you.