June F. Wilson

Published 1:27 pm Tuesday, January 6, 2015

She passed peacefully on a Tuesday, from a life well-lived and well-loved.

June Fay Wilson was born on the Ohio land granted her ancestors in the late 1600s. She turned earth’s material corner on December 23, 2014. She still looked a decade younger than her 93 years.

Her parents Margery and Howard Fay had three children during the well-shakened course of the 1920s. What followed was a decade of the meanest of wiry, scrappy hard times. And then the ashes of another World War blew over. June’s parents, like so many others, were sorely wrung out of all but their sense of humor when their hearts stopped in the 1980s.

June lost her beloved brother Howard in 2008.  Younger sis Ned (Tom), Sarasota, Fla., and best friend, sister-in-law Jean Wilson, Stockbridge, Mass., are now left homesick for June’s sweetness and delighted laugh.

June was married 45 years to her war-time sweetheart, Richard Lee Wilson Sr., of whom she could not wake on the bitter morning of Jan. 1, 1992. Rich was June’s valentine champion. His death transported her into a blind pain.  Her strong fabric thrived, though for June, life without Rich remained a foreign land.

They had three children, Cynthia Norden (Raymond), with whom she lived for 21 years in Wellington, Fla. and Landrum, and sons Richard, and Thane (Cheryl).

June, a gentle lady with ascending artistic talents, leaves a moral legacy advocating equal rights for all people despite the consenting dark cloak of her biased times.  She was led by the 1 Corinthian 16:14 verse, “Let all that you do be done in love.” June reflected on others with kindly eyes.

She also looked at change as a friend.  Adventures thus found her. Novice June solo-drove a heaving fourteen wheeler 2,000 miles in her forties, rode elephants in her fifties, hit polo balls off polo ponies in her sixties, handled alligators in her seventies, co-hosted a live, 3 hour, national network television program in her eighties, and entered the Kingdom of Heaven in her nineties.  Lord, to your faithful people life is changed, not taken away.

A memorial service will be held Sunday, Jan. 11, 2015 at 10 a.m. at the historic Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, 814 Markham Road, Tryon, N.C. A light tea brunch will follow the worship service and memorial. Betsy Norden (New Jersey) retired 20-year soloist with the Metropolitan Opera will sing.  Bob Haley, First Trumpet in the New York City Ballet Orchestra, will play “Taps.” Donations in June Wilson’s memory may be made to Good Shepherd Church, P.O. Box 893, Tryon, N.C. 28782.  Let all that you do be done in love.