CRAFTSBURY COMMON – June Cook passed peacefully on October 8, after a long illness. Her four children and daughter-in-law cared for her when she entered hospice in August, as well as dear friends and a devoted VNA nurse.
June was a beloved member of the community, and cherished her sweeping farmland, bordered by the Black River, where she tended her gardens and walked the fields with a dog by her side. The Northeast Kingdom called to her for over 50 years. She first spent summers with her young family in Craftsbury in the 1970s, writing about the fiddler’s contest on the Common for Yankee magazine, and photographing the early Bread and Puppet pageants in Glover.
She taught at the Craftsbury Academy in the 1980s, and then moved to southern California to teach at Chaffey Community College for 11 years where she served as the faculty senate president and taught in the School of Business and Applied Technology.
June moved back to Craftsbury upon her retirement in 2002, diving into various pursuits as an entrepreneur. She created “June’s Flowers” and loved arranging artful bouquets for the United Church of Craftsbury. She also returned to journalism, working as a reporter, arts and theater reviewer, and photographer, primarily for the Hardwick Gazette, for over 20 years.
June was raised in a family of six children on a large farm in Pennsylvania during the Great Depression and World War II. She was driving a tractor at 12 years old, studied in a one-room schoolhouse, and graduated from Hellertown High School in 1949. Her parents, Esther (née Alboum) and Benigno Pichel, emigrated to the United States through Ellis Island from Russia and Spain, respectively.
June graduated from Bloomsburg State Teachers College in 1953, and went on to receive her Masters Degree in English from the University of New Hampshire.
As a young woman, June worked in Washington, D.C., in the executive branch of the federal government, before marrying and settling in West Newbury, Mass., where she raised her four children. She taught high school in nearby Georgetown; served on the town planning board; wrote for the Newburyport Daily News; and helped secure an important grant in 1972 for the town to purchase a former Catholic academy and surrounding 343 acres for a new elementary school. Part of the liberal, artistic, intellectual generation delving into America’s history and promise, she also restored a pre-Revolutionary War home that was a joyful place for neighborhood children and was showcased in the local Sesquicentennial celebrations.
If June’s life could shine through a prism, the bands of color would be her passions: her family; nature; creativity; writing; and forever allowing her own curious soul to evolve and flourish. Her most profound faith was in the human ability to create and connect with one another. That faith manifested in a love of the arts, be it literature, theater, music, dance, sculpture, painting, photography, cinema, ceramics: any authentic expression of creativity.
She was as excited to experience Andy Warhol’s “Happenings” in the 1960s as she was to attend “Carmen” at the Met. And while June responded as a writer and photographer to beauty, she responded even more deeply to the human struggle to live in peace. For her peace meant being in balance with nature. To see June’s flower gardens and her lush array of house plants, (she brought back 40 orchids from California alone), was to know she found nurturing life as essential as breathing.
As a journalist, June was fiercely committed to a free and responsible press. She believed democracy needs informed citizens. She considered her reporting on local town government critical for the community to shape its future. She loved igniting passionate discussions both around the holiday table and in town meetings. She wanted people to express their concerns and their dreams for their town, state, country, and world. Her colleagues admired her thorough reporting, with a prime example being her coverage of the Lowell Mountain Wind Project. Months of stories revealed the nuances of a complex situation. She wanted people to not feel forced into a false choice of destroying ridgelines and intact habitats.
A beautiful woman, who appreciated sartorial style in a person, she had a sly sense of humor and a playful ability to immediately bond with children. Stray animals found their way to her. She was fearless and most level-headed, the more dire the situation. She believed there was no achievement without risk, whether it was surgery at 90 to try and cure her disease; or traveling to far-flung countries on her own; skiing the big Western bowls on Chaffey College ski trips; committing to teaching computer programs before such training was commonplace. She was in the vanguard always.
In 1999, she gave a graduation speech at Chaffey, sharing her hard-won wisdom:
“Uncertainty is one of life’s givens; embrace it because it will always be there. It is the dark moments of our lives that test us and force us to confront ourselves…. The transformed self looks inward, not outward, for life’s joys and fulfillments. The transformed self explores the hidden, inner, mystical life sleeping in the wilderness of our being, looks inward to where the inner spirit rises whole and definite, and as quietly as the morning light.”
June Cook is survived by her four children: Justine Cook of Dorset, Corinna Huffaker of Snohomish, Wash.; Conan Cook of Acworth, N.H.; Gavin Cook of Westford, her six grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren; and by her brothers David and Theodore Pichel.
Her family invites anyone who wishes to share their reminiscences to post them on the Curtis-Britch & Bouffard Funeral Home’s website, curtis–britch.com
There will be a Celebration of Life for June next spring in the Craftsbury area and the posted comments will be compiled and printed for the event. For anyone wishing to be notified about the Celebration of Life, please email Corinna Huffaker at corinnahuffaker@gmail.com
In lieu of flowers, please make a contribution in June’s memory to a charity of one’s choice that is dedicated in some way to nature, land conservation, animal welfare, and restoring the wild and beautiful places on Earth.
