In Memoriam: Atis & Judy Siegel Folkmanis

Remembering Atis Folkmanis ’62 & Judy Siegel Folkmanis ’63

(1938-2022; 1941-2016)

By Joan Straumanis ’57

Atis Folkmanis ‘62 and Judy Siegel Folkmanis ‘63 were brilliant puppet-makers. But Atis’s original plan was different--he intended to be a biochemist, and after Antioch enrolled in a PhD program at the U of California - Berkeley. To supplement Atis’s meager grad student stipend, Judy made puppets and sold them on the street. At first they were like cartoon characters, with “ping pong ball eyes” as she described them to me. But when she began to make them look like live animals, her little enterprise took off. She was so successful that Atis changed direction and became the business partner of “Furry Folk” as they called it.

They moved into a facility in Emeryville, California where the company, now called Folkmanis Puppets, lives on today staffed by their sons, Jason and Daniel. Their over 200 animal puppets were designed with such attention to species details that they offer, for example, both river and sea otters (yes, they’re different).

I had a particular connection with my friends Atis and Judy. (You’ll notice the similarity of our surnames.) Atis and my late husband, Eric Straumanis, had parallel histories: Both were born in Riga, Latvia in the same year,1938, and came to the US as WWII refugees. As children, both of them spent time in Displaced Persons camps in Germany. Sponsored by a local church, Atis’s family moved to Yellow Springs where Atis attended Bryan High School and Antioch College. Both Atis and Eric were lapsed Lutherans who married Jewish women, Judy and me. (Very unusual. Anti-semitism was prevalent in Latvia and in Eric’s family; I don’t know about Atis’s.)

Judy died in early 2016, and Atis last September. Their spirits live on in their amazing puppets.

Judy with Joan’s grandchildren, taken in summer 2015 at the Folkmanis company headquarters.