June Harper Sanderson Winsor Mitchell
August 1934-December 15 2016 Bridgewater Corners, VT
June "Bugs" was born in August, 1934 in a small town near Wallace, NC. Her father Phillip and mother Pearcy brought her up on a small tobacco farm. She graduated from Chinquapin High School and attended Eastern Carolina State College for three semesters, before meeting and marrying Irving Lewis Winsor, a Narragansett Bay Yankee of Warwick, RI, and moved there. A son, Philip Lewis was born in August 1953 (in NC), and they had a daughter, Sandi June in December 1958(RI).
June was divorced from Irving in 1963, and began raising her children alone. She worked as a waitress at the Miss Cranston Diner, the Howard Johnson's in Johnston, RI, for the Bulova company (she made fuses for mortar shells) and Star Supermarket in Providence, RI. In 1965, she met Herbert Claude Mitchell, Jr., of Block Island, RI. They fell in love, and married in 1968. When "Mitch" retired from the Cranston Police Force in 1975, Phillip and Pearcy found a home next door to their own place in Wallace, NC where the Mitchell's could live. June retired from the Wallace Hannaford Supermarket in 1996. They lived there happily, with their many cats, until January 2015, when Mitch died.
Heartbroken by the loss, she decided to move with her two cats, Misty and Harry Potter, to Vermont to live with her son, arriving near Halloween, 2015. In August of 2016, June and her daughter-in-law, Wendy Winsor and a friend Barbara, towed a 36 foot long fifth wheel camper from VT to PA to visit the Gettysburg Battleground, the Hershey Chocolate factory and Jefferson's Monticello. From there, they went to White Lake in NC, and camped for a month. During their stay, they spent three days at the Outer Banks, and saw a production of the "Lost Colony", a lifelong dream for June.
June was instrumental in the public recognition given to the seven Cranston Police officers who were fired when they tried to form a union(Fraternal Order of Police)) in the 1960s. In a case that went to the RI Supreme Court, all seven officers were reinstated. Mitch was the last surviving member of that seven. This was the crowning achievement of June's life.
She is survived by her sister, Joanne Lasseter of Wallace NC, son Philip, his wife Wendy and children Alana and Katherine, and her daughter Sandi and her children Amey, Sydney and Mitchell, and great-grandson Cale, stepdaughter Debbie Rowe and June's loving cat, Misty.
There will be no service and the funeral arrangements are private. Donations can be made in her name to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Special thanks to the Bayada Hospice staff who have been a part of our lives these past few months.
Do not fear death
It is an inseparable part of life
The physical body is all that ends
The soul continues forever
Each person you meet
During your long life
Has been impacted by your soul
In turn, each of those people interacts with others
All feeling in some small way your soul
Tho you may be but a single thread in the tapestry of life
That one thread binds all the rest together
Remember that tapestry
That it stretches from the Dawn of Mankind into the far distant future
And embrace Death, for without the death of Fall and Winter
Spring, and the world's rebirth
Would not be possible (copyright)
Philip L. Winsor
November 2016