“June” as she was always known, grew up in a family with five siblings, the second daughter of Arthur W. Turner and Hazel (Griffin) Turner, both descendants from many generations of Maine and Massachusetts pioneers including Mayflower pilgrims Stephen Hopkins and Thomas Rogers.
She was born in 1920 near the Maine dam sawmill at Frankfort, which was operated by her father. Her mother had been a Registered Nurse graduate in Bangor. June was a victim of Scarlet Fever as a young girl and remembered being quarantined in her second home about a mile north on Route 1 where her father’s enterprising swimming hole business was identified on 1928 postcards as “Flat Rock.” From the Flat Rock home June walked daily to the village school, now the Frankfort Town Hall.
Always a creative stitcher, and with an early love of sewing, June once walked miles to a dry goods store in Winterport because she wanted material to make a special dress for her younger sister, Ruby. Her sister Kay, eight years younger, remembers her first two school dresses made by June. Her own high school wardrobe was sparse and she was hard pressed to come up with snack time money, a popular pastime with classmates. June was industrious and crocheted a collar to complement her graduation sweater. Thirteen years later, she resumed her interest in fabrics and creative clothing design by enrolling at The Fashion Academy in New York City.
June attended Freeport High School as her father traveled south to find and operate a tourist home, and was a 1937 graduate in a class exceeding 100 students at Brunswick High. She took the commercial course and was the first to get a summer job, assisting at The Walker Homestead in Topsham.
With her brother-in-law’s connections she got a job at Mallett’s Freeport Shoe Factory, and soon thereafter, due to an existing friendship with Priscilla Leavitt, she was accepted into the catalog label typing pool at L.L. Bean, which proved fateful in meeting her future husband, Charles “Warnie” Bean, son of the owner, and designer of the company’s leather and canvas specialties. Their special friends were fellow music lovers Major and Marge Cushing, with whom they played, sang and performed locally.
June and Warren Bean married in 1940 and had two daughters, Linda and Diana, who have survived them both. Her second marriage was to Reuben K. Dyer of Freeport, who passed in 2008.
With her second husband, she ran Dyer’s Floral Shop and Landscape Nursery with several employees in Rockport, Maine, from 1965 to 1983, near the site of the present YMCA.
For 30 years, she was a loyal member of the Board of Directors of L.L. Bean, Inc., Freeport.
In her retirement years at Cumberland, she preferred a quiet at-home life and summered for years in Ogunquit. Her favorite foods were Maine lobster, scallops, asparagus, potatoes, creamed onions and fudge.
Her surviving sibling is Kathleen Greczkowski of Santa Rosa, Calif. A brother, Arthur W. Turner Jr., of Brunswick, died several years ago, followed by Marian Simpson of Las Vegas, Robert V. Turner of Bowdoinham, and Ruby M. Condon of Brunswick.
Surviving daughters are Diana Bean of Ogunquit and Linda Bean of Freeport and St. George. June is also survived by three grandsons, Jason Warren Clark of Wilsonville, Ore., and his son Jesse Clark Gertz of Portland; Nathan James Clark and his wife, Kathryn Elizabeth Burnham and their children Andrew Howland Clark and Eliza Grace Clark, all of Cumberland; and Kevin Carl Clark and son Lachlan MacBean Clark of Eustis.
A public graveside gathering will be held at 4:30 p.m. Monday, July 21, 2014, at Webster Cemetery, Freeport, coordinated with Brackett Funeral Home, 29 Federal St., Brunswick.
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