A Natural Beauty

June Graham Spencer was born on June 14, 1925 in St. Louis, Missouri. A child of the Roaring Twenties, she experienced radical changes from the Great Depression era right into the technology era. She graduated from high school at sixteen and remembered the impact of Pearl Harbor and watching her friends rush off to enlist.

June married at nineteen and soon began a family with daughter Nancy, followed by son Chris. With her military husband she moved to Great Falls, Montana and began working in nursing. After the war, June divorced and took her two children with her to New York City — “with $99 in the bank and the world to make a living in.”

Gifted with beauty, a quick wit, keen intelligence and an insatiable thirst for discovery and knowledge, June first opened the door to a career in modeling and followed up to a wider audience as a pioneer in the era of live television. June performed in over 5,000 on-camera commercials on programs such as The Jackie Gleason Show, Playhouse 90, The $64,000 Question and dozens more. June acted with notables like James Earl Jones when she was a leading lady on the soap opera The Guiding Light for seven years. Her circle of friends also grew, and on one memorable occasion, she breakfasted with Eleanor Roosevelt the day Adlai Stevenson was nominated for President at the 1956 Democratic Convention.

June worked on television from 1953 until 1971. At the time, her thirst for discovery led her into the then cutting-edge world of meditation, visualization and the power of positive thinking. As a seminar leader for the Silva Method, she soon became one of the top three instructors in the world.

Late in 1975, facing the challenge of breast cancer and a radical mastectomy, June found the courage to proceed, and her only comment on the experience was, “I’ve had hangovers worse than this!” Three months later, Jim Spencer walked into her life and into her heart. “I discovered my soul mate in a body of a man twenty years younger than me, and we had to let go of our preconceived ideas from the start.”

June and Jim began teaching seminars together and went on to form a nonprofit organization, Let Go & Live Institute Ltd. Letting go of emotional blocks became the mainstay of their counseling/seminar programs. As inspirational speakers, June and Jim were invited to dozens of organizations, including the United Nations and the American Cancer Society. June’s quest for deeper insights took them to the Communion of Souls Seminary. After four years, she and Jim were ordained interfaith ministers. While their ministry was focused upon counseling and retreats, both loved the fact that they could also perform weddings.

The Land of Canyons and Mountains

In 1992, June and Jim left New York City for the quiet of Redstone, Colorado. June immersed herself in community work that allowed her to share her talents through theater, counseling and public speaking. She took great joy in performing weddings for couples of different religious backgrounds.

In 2000, June and Jim moved to Chaffee County to lead more of a retreat lifestyle. It was then that she had the time to finish a fourth book and began two others in the realm of philosophy/self-help/spirituality. Her newest passion became the creation of mineral angels. As June said, “Earth Angels are here to serve as a reminder of our own guardian angels and the true magic that is all around us and within us as well!”

June’s health became severely compromised from a reaction to an antibiotic in 2003. Since then, she had persevered with a painful autoimmune syndrome and spinal compression. While scheduled for spinal surgery in a few weeks, her body deteriorated rapidly and she suffered greatly. June lacked the physical stamina to keep up with her indomitable spirit. Unable to digest or stand for more than three minutes, she mustered the energy to perform a wedding at a local bed and breakfast. She wanted to pass on the torch of love even though her flame was going out.

June died on August 4, 2007. Very peacefully and courageously she said, “It’s time!” Minutes later she dropped her body and returned to spirit. Her love shines on.

To sum up June’s life in one sentence is to say, “She touched thousands of people in a profound and memorable way.”