OKLAHOMA CITY – A Mass of Christian Burial was held Sunday, Nov. 10, at The Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help for Judy Love, 87, co-founder of Oklahoma- based Love’s Travel Stops.
Love is listed as number two on the 2024 Forbes’ list of America’s Self-Made Women. In 2010, she was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.
Love and her husband Tom, who died in March 2023, founded the truck stop and convenience store chain Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores in 1964. They leased their first gas station in Watonga with a $5,000 loan from Tom’s parents. The corporation now has over 640 stores in 42 states and employees about 40,000 people. In 2022, Forbes listed the family- owned company’s worth at $9.7 billion.
She was born in 1937 in Chicago to Ed and Ruth McCarthy and moved to Oklahoma City at an early age.
She married Tom in 1960 and they had four children: Greg, Laura, Jenny and Frank.
Their sons, Greg and Frank, have been co-CEOs since 2014. She is also survived by nine grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
In the early business years, Love worked as secretary and bookkeeper and became chairman of the Love’s Family Foundation.
Her passion for philanthropy and community service was instrumental in Love’s charitable giving through the years. She was a member on 11 civic boards and chaired or co-chaired 14 major fundraising drives for the community. In her lifetime, she received more than 30 awards.
“Our mother, Judy Love, was the heart and soul of our family,” the Love family said in a statement. “She cared deeply for us and those who worked alongside her and Dad. Her tenacity, strength and focus will guide us forever. She taught us the importance of hard work, honesty and the joy of giving back.
While we will miss her dearly, her spirit will live on through the countless lives she touched.”