Julie was born in Melrose, MA, USA, and grew up there. Her mother was a homemaker, and her father owned a small manufacturing business.

Julie earned a BSC from Simmons College in Boston in 1957, following it with 6 months of practical physiotherapy training. She first practiced physiotherapy at Boston Children's Hospital, and then at other hospitals in the Boston area.

Julie married Thomas “Tom” Wilson on February 8, 1958. Tom was a graduate student at Harvard at the time. Julie would joke that Tom’s reason for marrying her was to get away from the Harvard dormitory food; Julie was an excellent cook and Tom was driven by his stomach. The two met while playing bridge and they shared their passion for the game throughout their life together.

Julie and Tom had their first child, Christine, in 1962. Their second child, Arthur, was born in 1964. Arthur often jokes that his parents’ real motivation for having 2 kids was so they would always have a 3rd and 4th for bridge. Being very much ahead of her time, Julie managed to maintain her professional work part-time while caring for her two young children.

In 1967, the family moved to Toronto, Canada. Julie became a full-time homemaker as well as a part-time interior designer; carpenter (Julie was probably one of the first women in Toronto to have her own table saw); gardener; accountant for Tom’s growing economic consulting business; and general Jane of all trades.
In 1979, Julie and Tom bought a farm property near Creemore, Ontario. This allowed her longstanding interest in gardening to grow and flourish. Her initial focus was on vegetables, but she soon developed a fascination with daylilies and began to acquire a growing number of varieties. In 1999, Julie and Tom founded “Nottawasaga Daylilies” and started selling plants to the general public. At its peak, Nottawasaga Daylilies had more than 700 different cultivars in the garden!

Julie was a founding member of the Ontario Daylily Society (“ODS”), established in 1997, and was very active in that group. She and Tom participated in the Creemore Farmers’ Market for several years. They held open gardens for visitors to tour on weekends in the summers.

Julie created several new daylily cultivars through a process called hybridizing and won an award from the ODS for one of her plants. Nottawasaga Daylilies sold plants to Metro Toronto and the University of Toronto and contributed plants to the Creemore Horticultural Society and public gardens in Creemore.

She is survived by Tom, Christine and Arthur, and by her grandchildren, James Minor and Susan Wilson.