June Nelson was the first born of Marguerite and Carl Nelson. She was followed by David, Sadie, and Mary. Possibly because she was the oldest of the four children, she tended to be the caregiver and a little bossy all of her life.
The family lived on Greenridge and June and her brother David rode a horse to school in Phipsburg. When June was ten years old, the family moved to Yampa. Here they could walk to school since they lived right next door to it. She finished her elementary and high school here where she graduated at the top of her class.
June and Phyllis Easterly, who had been best friends for years, attended the Nazarene College in Pasadena, California. One year June worked on the 7-up float for the Rose Bowl Parade. Maybe that's where her love affair with flowers began.
After college, June became an elementary teacher in several different towns in Colorado. This allowed her to take many summer rode trips in her VW bug. She loved nothing better than to go often with a friend or relative and just take off in her bug. It might be a trip to Tin Cup to check out the beautiful flowers. It might be a drive to Durango to take a ride on the train to Silverthorn. Or it might be a drive to a hidden waterfall or lake she had found. Taking a road trip with her was fun because she knew all the flowers, trees, and animals. It was like being another student of hers on a field trip.
June learned to down hill ski and often took advantage of the Colorado ski slopes. She broke her leg at least once, but as soon as it was healed, she found herself back on the slopes. She also did cross country skiing, especially after moving to Portland, Oregon.
When she moved to Portland, she gave up teaching to work for an optometrist. This move allowed her to take advantage of the long, humid growing season and she made many jars of jams and jellies for the abundant wild berries.
While in Portland she suffered the effects of the Mt. St.Helen 's volcano eruption. For months EVERYTHING was covered with a layer of ash.
When her mother, Marguerite, started to show sign of dementia, June moved back to Colorado to take care of her. She spent many years caring for her mom and working for Visiting Nurses Association.
June also spent many years cultivating beautiful flowers along the log railing around the house. Each year she added some new ones. Every fall was spent planting bulbs, and every spring found the back of June's car filled with new seedlings. A bouquet of fresh flowers could always be found in June's home. She even made beautiful bouquets and dried flower arrangements out of weeds.
The whole family spent hours picking raspberries from the patch that grew more abundant every year. Red fingers and red lips were a dead giveaway that someone had raided the raspberry patch.
Quilting was another of June's hobbies. The winters would find her designing new quilts or at her sewing machine turning those tiny pieces of material into works of art. Family members have many of those quilts to warm them in the winter and warm their hearts all year long.
Family was always important to June. She almost never forgot a birthday and spent lots of time with her nieces and their families. She cheered for her great nephews, Matt and Carl, and great niece Mattie when they participated in various sports. Often the whole family spent an afternoon or evening playing croquet on the front lawn.
June loved holidays. For Christmas the entire house was covered with Christmas decorations including the windows with their handmade snow flakes. She would put lights on the trees outside, on the eves of the house and all around the fence. They were beautiful lights that could be appreciated from the highway. At least once she fell off the ladder when taking the lights down. That never stopped her from doing the whole thing again the next year.
Easter egg hunts were a big deal at June's home. She loved to dye eggs and decorated them beautifully. Who enjoyed these hunts more – the adults who hid the eggs, or the children who found them?
June was a champion pumpkin carver in the fall. Halloween at her home always meant beautifully carved or scary Jack-O-Lanterns depending on her mood and the character of the pumpkins she had to work with. It was always sad to see them wither away or be turned into pumpkin pie.
June always had a soft spot in her heart for feral cats. Over the years many of them found themselves at her door where she fed them and offered them shelter and love. Some of them disappeared as suddenly as they had appeared, but she always had a cat or two around the house to keep her company.
June spent countless hours with her aunt Evelyn who ended up living in a nursing home for 11 years. June made sure Evelyn had all of her needs taken care of and always made sure holidays and special events were spent with family. After surgery, June once spent a few days recovering in the same nursing home as Evelyn. Even then June checked in on Evelyn to make sure she was doing alright even before taking care of herself..
Never one to give up easily, when cancer hit June she continued to care for her failing mother. The years that followed brought other health issues and more cancer. Though she fought longer and harder than anyone could imagine, she finally succumbed to the effects of the disease and passed away on September 4, 2018.
Perhaps she is now playing table games or croquet with her sister Sadie who passed away in 2007.
June is survived by her brother David, sister Mary, nieces Janet, Charlene, and Leslie and great nephews Matt and Carl, and great niece Mattie.