June Elizabeth (Myers) Steenson

June E. Steenson, 102 of Wolbach, died on Saturday, October 9, 2021 at the Howard County Medical Center in St. Paul. 

Funeral Services will be at 10:00 A.M. on Friday, October 15, 2021 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Wolbach.  Interment will be in the Hillside Cemetery in Wolbach.  Pastor Glenda Pearson will be officiating.  

Visitation will be from 5-7 P.M. on Thursday, October 14, 2021 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Wolbach.  In lieu of flowers, memorials are suggested to the family to be designated at a later date.  Jacobsen-Greenway-Dietz Funeral Home in St. Paul is assisting the family. 

 She was born June 23, 1919 to Josie Belle (Kinney) and George Christian Myers on the family farm near Genoa. 

June attended District 6 school in the Cushing area and then College Knob Rural School north of Wolbach through eighth grade.  She attended Wolbach High School for 3 years, where she was a cheerleader.  In the midst of the ‘Dirty Thirties,’ her family moved to Green River, Wyoming in 1936 to find work, so June graduated from Green River High School in 1937.  She worked afternoons at a Chinese restaurant in Green River, and bought her own graduation dress and her bedroom furniture from the money she earned waiting tables.

While still a student at Wolbach, she fell in love with Lawrence (Bub) Steenson.  He moved to Green River to be near her after he graduated in August 1936.  June and Bub were united in marriage on July 3, 1937, in Green River, Wyoming.  They were married 55 years until he passed away in 1992.

They had two sons.  Larry Joe was born in 1939 in Green River, Wyoming.  Teddy Jay was born in 1943 in St. Paul, Nebraska.

Bub and June moved back to the Wolbach area in 1941 and lived on rented farms from 1941 to 1948.  In January of 1949, they purchased the former Bill Kolar farm, where June lived for nearly 72 years until her passing.  They raised corn, wheat, cattle, hogs, chickens, and horses, and after semi-retiring, they even kept a few donkeys to have something to do.  They had a series of farm dogs and a few stray cats.  June was active in many community events, including the Wolbach rodeo, and was a long-time member of the Trinity Lutheran Church in Wolbach, the Pins & Pans Extension clubs, and the local Bridge club.

June always had a big garden that produced a yearly bounty of goodies each season. Asparagus, radishes, lettuce and cucumbers fresh were some favorites. She was an expert in canning vegetables, including green beans (which Bub cut into just the right size and shape), pickles, tomatoes, and tomato juice.  She also made sure there was plenty of ground horseradish to go around.

June and Bub hosted family reunions for all the in-laws’ families in the big yellow building on their farm for several years.  They hosted holidays, especially Christmas Eve, where she served chili, oyster soup, ham, and a mincemeat pie for Bub and Larry.  Their boys and grandkids were there every year, no matter what; her family remembers getting snowed in at their place at least twice.

June and her friend Wilma Wagner started making a variety of Christmas cookies in the 1940s.  June and her daughter-in-law, Harriet, kept that tradition going, later assisted by her granddaughters, Luanne and Gail.  June was also a talented cake baker; she made wedding cakes for a multitude of couples over the years.  One of her first was for Larry and Harriet’s wedding in 1957.   Sixty years later, June gave direction to her granddaughters to bake an identical cake for Larry and Harriet’s anniversary.  June insisted on piping the roses on the cake.  A skilled seamstress, June quilted, embroidered, and knitted for many years, until her hands just couldn’t do it any more.  Her family still treasures the gifts she crafted for them.

June’s and Bub’s favorite pastime was fishing.  They enjoyed many trips with Bub’s siblings, Leatha and Homer Cook, and Delmar and Reva Steenson.  They created a cover for the stock racks on their old white pickup and threw a mattress in the back -- and they had their camper.  Bub said, “Give June a fishing pole and a can of worms, and she’ll be happy all day!”  They taught their boys and their grandkids that if you wanted to go fishing, you first had to dig worms and get the poles ready, and then get chores done.  Their motto was, “Hard work never hurt anybody.”

June and Bub hosted many friends and family for meals and card games.  She played cards almost every day, including solitaire (Old Sol), cribbage, bridge, pitch, pinochle and about any other game somebody wanted to play.  She never bragged, but she couldn’t hold back her hearty laugh when she’d beat you, and for anyone that played her, that was often.

When grandkids would stay over with them, June would make their favorite breakfast of “soupy” eggs and toast.  And then she’d put them to work doing something, from cutting musk thistles, to cleaning out the chicken house, to cleaning the house and doing dishes.

June and Bub enjoyed traveling, visiting Ted in Holland, Germany, and Japan (Okinawa).  They also went on many trips throughout the USA, sometimes taking one of their grandchildren along.  After Ted retired from teaching for the Department of Defense Dependent Services (DoDDS), June spent January through March of each year with him in his Florida home until he passed way in 2010.

She liked anything “kelly green” in color (other greens not so much).   She even asked Grossart’s to order a green refrigerator that was in her kitchen for many years.  She could, and would, talk to anybody, and never had a cross word to say about anyone.  She never stopped trying new things or making new friends.  June went for her first motorcycle ride on her 100th birthday, thanks to her friend Dewey.  She went for another motorcycle ride on her 102nd, thanks to D.J. Martinez of the Abate of Nebraska group, which happened to be in Wolbach that day.

She was preceded in death by her husband Bub, parents, George and Josie, her brothers Carl (Ted) and Cecil, in-laws Homer and Leatha Cook, and Delmar and Reva Steenson, and son Ted. 

June is survived by her son Larry (Harriet), and by her grandchildren Mike (Nora), Luanne Mobley (Harold), Jerry(Hea Kyung), and Gail Seaton (Scott). She is also survived by her great-grandchildren Elizabeth Hearring (Brian), Andrew Steenson (Lindsey), Evan Johnston (Jory), Drew Johnston (Bailey Wilmes), Katherina Steenson (Michael Brighi), Tiffani Steenson, Isaac Steenson, and James Buchanan (Sydne).  June is also survived by five great-great-grandchildren Nathan, Morgan, and Evelyn Hearring, and Isabelle and Audrey Steenson, along with many nephews and nieces and their families, and by many friends in Wolbach and the surrounding area who looked after her like family. 

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