Judith Fitzgerald

Judith Fitzgerald is a graduate of Indiana University and an artisan, calligrapher, and graphic designer. In 2004 Fitzgerald and her husband, Michael, published the first in an award-winning series of illustrated inspirational books on the world’s religions, called “Sacred Worlds”, with titles such as Indian Spirit, The Spirit of Indian Women, Christian Spirit, The Sermon of All Creation, and The Universal Spirit of Islam. The books in this series have received ten prestigious awards. Many of the photographs in this series and in her husband’s other books were taken by her during their travels to visit traditional cultures around the world.

Fitzgerald was born in Richmond, Indiana and met her future husband while they were students at Indiana University.  In 1972 she and her husband spent part of the summer living on the Crow Indian Reservation with Thomas Yellowtail, one of the most revered American Indian spiritual leaders of the past century, and his wife, Susie Yellowtail, who is now enshrined in the Montana Hall of Fame.

In 1975 the Yellowtails made the first of a series of annual October visits to the Fitzgerald home in Bloomington, Indiana. During that visit Fitzgerald was adopted into the Yellowtail family and the Crow tribe. The Yellowtails were to provide the Fitzgeralds with introductions to many spiritual leaders of other American Indian tribes; thus Judith and Michael Fitzgerald have spent extended periods of time over a period of more than thirty-five years visiting traditional cultures and attending sacred ceremonies throughout the American West, including the sacred rites of the Crow, Sioux, Cheyenne, Shoshone, Bannock, and Apache Tribes. They have also spent extended periods of time in traditional Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamic cultures.

All royalties for Judith Fitzgerald’s books on American Indians are donated to various American Indian charities, including The American Indian College Fund, Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian, for support of Crow, Shoshone and Lakota Sun Dances and to provide books and films to tribal colleges and high schools located on Indian reservations throughout the US and Canada.

The Fitzgerald family provides ongoing financial contributions that include underwriting Crow language textbooks for the Crow Language Consortium and the establishment of a permanent endowment for the Language Conservancy with the Bloomington Community Foundation.

Judith and Michael Fitzgerald have an adult son and live in Bloomington, Indiana.