Since 2010, the Michigan Judges Association has presented the Hilda Gage Judicial Excellence Award to a worthy judge who has contributed to the profession, legal scholarship, and the community.¹ It reminds members to emulate Gage and her “dedication to justice, her fierce courage, her uncommon sense of fairness, and her goodness as a human being.”²

Hilda Frances Rosenberg Gage set a high bar.

She was only 39 in 1978 when she was first elected judge, winning a seat on the Oakland County Circuit Court. Her résumé was impressive, having earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Michigan³ and her law degree from Wayne State University Law School, where she graduated at “top of her class, with numerous honors for academic achievement.”⁴ Shortly thereafter, she became a partner at “one of the first law firms in the country with black, Jewish, and female partners.”⁵

Most of the aforementioned accomplishments were done while multitasking. She taught in Ann Arbor and the Cherry Hill School District in Dearborn⁶ while her husband earned a law degree of his own. Once he graduated, they started a family — three children in six years, the last of whom was born two years after Gage had started attending law school at night to earn her legal degree. Over the next five years, she balanced night school with her day job and home life.

She graduated at the top of her class.

Gage still found time to volunteer at her local synagogue, Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield, where she became its first female usher and later vice president of the Shaarey Zedek Sisterhood.⁷ Around the same time, she was appointed to the Michigan Civil Rights Commission, where she served as secretary-treasurer.⁸ She was also on the State Bar of Michigan General Practice Section Council, co-chair of the Grievance Committee with future Michigan Supreme Court Justice and Detroit Mayor Dennis W. Archer, and a Representative Assembly member.

In addition to her professional and personal accomplishments, Gage also suffered incredible heartache and hardship by the time she turned 39. When she was 11, her father, Jacob Rosenberg, died suddenly, leaving behind a wife, two school-aged children, and a married daughter and grandchild.⁹ The family was still digesting the news when they learned that her maternal grandfather had died across town less than 24 hours later. The family had a double funeral.

The worst tragedies seemed to come in clusters. In 1974, four years before her election to the Oakland County court, her six-year-old son died of dysautonomia, a malfunction of the autonomic nervous system¹⁰ that required around-the-clock care, frequent hospitalization, and nonstop queries from medical professionals regarding the rare disease. Gage “would rush her son to the hospital and have to explain to the medical staff” what was happening and what he needed.¹¹ She was still teaching and attending law school — remember, she graduated at the top of her Wayne State Law School class during this time — while juggling hospital visits, doctor’s appointments, and everything else, including joining a new law firm. Around the same time, Gage was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She was told to “to drop out of your profession, go rest, [and] don’t do anything stressful.”¹²

That suggestion irritated Gage enough that it remained seared in her mind more than 20 years later.¹³ By that time, she had been newly appointed to the Michigan Court of Appeals and was regarded as one of the most respected judges in the state.¹⁴

Gage stayed at the Oakland County Circuit Court for nearly 20 years and was elected chief judge by her fellow jurists.¹⁵ She was known as “the picture of efficiency and the picture of a no-nonsense jurist”¹⁶ and “a careful and fair-minded judge.”¹⁷ She was respected by her colleagues on the bench, so much so that she was elected president of the Michigan Judges Association, chair of the American Bar Association National Conference of State Trial Judges, and head of the Judicial Tenure Commission —the first woman to serve in each of those roles.¹⁸

All of this occurred after another year of multiple setbacks. Gage’s multiple sclerosis flared up — she had been free of symptoms for a long time — around the same time her mother died, and her marriage ended. Gage could have certainly rested on her laurels at that point; instead, she “made arrangements from her hospital bed for courtroom renovations that would allow her to stay on the bench”¹⁹ and returned to work.

That was how Gage moved through life — “You have to play the hand you’re dealt,” she’d say.²⁰ And she did it well.

After her son was diagnosed with dysautonomia, she founded the Michigan chapter of the Dysautonomia Foundation and started raising money to fund research for a cure, all while educating the public about the little-known disease.²¹ When she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she worked closely with the Multiple Sclerosis Society locally and nationally and didn’t let it stop her. Despite being advised to live a restful, stress-free life, she ran for a seat on the Oakland County bench. And when her disease flared up, she got a cane and, eventually, a wheelchair to continue in her chosen profession.

Gage’s return to the bench coincided with her hearing some of the biggest cases of her career. She ruled that a Rochester Elks lodge had to “open its doors to women” and when the club balked, she told its members to stop delaying and hold another vote.²² She heard one of Michigan’s first right-to-die cases, which involved a quadriplegic patient who requested permission to turn off his ventilator. Gage ruled in the patient’s favor, deciding that he “had the right to refuse any medical treatment.”²³ Later, she recalled that the case hit close to home because the young man chose not to continue even though “he had so much he could contribute.”²⁴

Gage, too, felt she had more to contribute. After consulting with her doctor,²⁵ she decided to run for the Michigan Supreme Court. She lost, but was later appointed to fill a vacancy on the state Court of Appeals. Her investiture was held 18 years to the month after she won her first judicial election in Oakland County and 23 years since her multiple sclerosis diagnosis.

At the Court of Appeals investiture, a colleague noted that Gage was “who we all wish we could be.”²⁶ Gage was 71 when passed away from complications due to multiple sclerosis in 2010. That same year, the Michigan Judicial Association began presenting the Hilda Gage Judicial Excellence Award to a sitting or retired circuit or appeals judge who has demonstrated competence in docket and trial management and made contributions to the legal profession through legal scholarship and community service.²⁷