June Vivian Cook

June Vivian Cook passed away on November 24, 2018 at the Walla Walla Washington Odd Fellows Home.

June Vivian Steven, born in a snowstorm, with a heart murmur, drinking ant poison in the high chair, this little ‘June-bug’ never should have lived!  But live she did, a few days from 94 years of bustling life.  Raised in tiny Iowa towns, she walked fence lines to school in the years of the big snows.  Along with her 2 elder sisters, she helped her dad hunt rabbits for dinner and catch dozens of free fish in numerous Iowa lakes.  The girls spent hours stripping, sanding and repainting doors and windows alongside their carpenter father.  In those war days, there were no new materials to be had.  Everything for building a single new house had to come from one or two that were being torn down. Life was pretty spare in difficult depression years, and made an indelible, resolve tightening, impression.

After a terrible heartbreak, she wanted ‘out’ of small-town life, and in her later 20’s, she followed family friends to Southern California.  Her brief marriage to a shyster opened the door for her only child to come into the world.  A divorcee in 1959, she needed all the fortitude she had developed to make a life for us.  Years of hard work and dedication in the secretarial field got us through.  The private secretary in those years had to be a dynamo; in many cases, almost do the ‘thinking’ for her boss.  She excelled with the technology of her day - Dictaphones, Teletypes, and heavens, the lowly Typewriter, all fell under her spell.

In 1975, it was a big deal for a woman to buy a house.  Life was a little easier; she could enjoy gardening, painting and other hobbies she had always been interested in.  June also made extra money typing term papers and essays for my fellow college students.  Struggling painfully in school, finally, left to her own pace, she read copiously and continued to learn her whole life.  Though shy and reclusive to the end, she strove to walk the Christian faith she believed in.  She loved to sing hymns and read the Bible daily until dementia came along, and stole a lot of that from her.

Many thanks to the team at the Washington Odd Fellows Home East Care for their patience and good humor with my mom in the last 20 months of her life.

At Junes request no Services will be held.

Memorial Contributions may be made to the charity of the donor’s choice through the Professional Funeral Directors and Crematory, 315 W. Alder, Walla Walla, WA.