June G Dickinson

Suddenly and without warning, June Greathouse Dickinson, age 96, died Sunday morning, July 18, 2021. She was recovering from complications after, but unrelated to, knee surgery. Her family expected her to come home from a rehabilitation facility within days. Instead, she left us early to begin her next journey.

A memorial service will be held at National Presbyterian Church at 2 p.m., on August 10. [4101 Nebraska Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20016; (202) 537-0800]

Flowers are appreciated, however, should you like to make a donation in honor of her memory, below are suggestions:

* National Presbyterian Church: Deacon Fund

* Asbury University: Gladys M. Greathouse Scholarship and the Richard Dickinson Endowed Scholarship funds

* Taylor University: Gladys Millard Greathouse Scholarship Fund

Mrs. Dickinson was born on Nov. 9, 1924, to Robert E. and Gladys M. Greathouse, in the small, rural town of Wilmore, Ky., home of Asbury University. This is where she attended classes and met her beloved husband, Richard P. Dickinson. It is also where her mother taught speech and drama for many years.

Mrs. Dickinson was an active, vigorous spirit in her career and numerous avocations. In her final position, she served as Chief, Nutrition Services, for Prince Georges County, Maryland. She loved her various postings there, working with people who needed help from someone like her, who would not scold nor belittle them.

* From September 1964 to August 1970, she was assistant county nutritionist for the Prince Georges County Health Department.

* From 1960 to 1964, she was in the Commissioned Officer Corp of the National Public Health Service, where she was an assistant dietitian in the U.S. Public Health Services Clinical Center at the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, Maryland.

* From March to June, 1960, she had an internship that she spoke about fondly, working as assistant to the main-kitchen dietitian, in New Haven Hospital, at Yale Medical Center, in Connecticut, also in New Haven.

She achieved her M.S. in food and nutrition at the University of Wisconsin, where she would go ice skating on the frozen lakes and rivers in winter, despite saying she nearly froze to death.

She received a B.A. degree in speech from Asbury College, in Wilmore, then an M.S. degree in home-economics education from the University of Kentucky (which was just up the road a piece, in Lexington).

Her numerous activities included creating brilliant, stained-glass ornaments; memberships in multiple professional societies; and teaching AARP safe-driving classes. Eventually, she became an area coordinator for the AARP class instructors.

Mrs. Dickinson was an enthusiastic member of the ADA, DCDA, Phi U, Zonta International, AHEA, DCHEA, APHA, MPHA, SNE, and Metro DC SNE. She served on the Technical Advisory Committee of the Maryland State Department of Education-NETP, and contributed to the Advisory Committee of the Dietetic Technician Program at Northern Virginia Community College. In addition, she became a member of the ADA Commission on Dietetic Regulation.

Honors and awards included honor student, University of Kentucky; an internship scholarship from the Kentucky DA; and an outstanding service award, from the Heart Association of Southern Indiana.

She is survived by her nephew, Lee Greathouse, her niece, Carolyn J. Feng and her husband Peter; and by her great nephews J. Tom Feng and his wife Jill, and Elliot Feng and his wife Brianne. She is also survived by her brother-in-law Philip Dickinson and his wife Elinor and nieces from that union.

Mrs. Dickinson married the love of her life, Richard P. Dickinson, in 1946. Lt. Dickinson was an ordained Methodist minister and a naval aviator who flew fighter planes off aircraft carriers. She often spoke fondly of her seven wonderful years with him before he was lost at sea in a collision with other aircraft in stormy weather.

Lee Greathouse’s Eulogy at the Memorial Service

I’m Lee Greathouse, June Dickinson’s nephew. My Aunt June accomplished much.

You can read about her life in today’s bulletin and her obituary on Gawler’s funeral home’s

Web site.

What you won’t read about is that when she was three or four—she couldn’t remember which—she wanted to see if the living-room curtains would burn. So, she set fire to them.

She proved it.

You also won’t read about the ghost beehives. She and my father, who was a year older, grew up in the tiny, rural town of Wilmore, Kentucky. One day, they wandered past an abandoned house and noticed some of those old, boxy, wooden beehives behind it. There was no question. They had to investigate. They found no bees, and for some reason no one can remember, my father pushed one of the hives. It toppled, revealing a hole underneath. The hole was big enough that a child could fit down it, so, of course, that’s just what they did. At the bottom, there was a tunnel. They could fit into that, too., so …. They felt their way along, and soon came to another hole—but this one didn’t lead to the surface or to a tunnel. They clambered through the opening, and dropped down into the basement of the house. Through the clouds of dust and cobwebs they stirred up, they saw the glint of metal. Many years later, my aunt said, of course, they knew what it was, even at that age. They found a still.

In this beautiful house of worship (National Presbyterian Church), we should remember that sometimes the Lord’s ways are mysterious. Sometimes we suffer for our good deeds, as Aunt June did once when she and my father were little. They made a playhouse outdoors by tipping a small table on its side and putting a blanket on top. Very cozy. They were serving imaginary tea by the light of a candle they had put on a little ledge behind them. She was pouring the pretend tea with a real, doll-size tea set when she was noticed that the hair on the back of my father’s head was on fire. But even at that age, she knew what to do. There was no water, so she did the next-best thing. She started beating out the flames.

My father, shocked by this unprovoked attack, started hitting her back. Wouldn’t you?Fortunately, that drama didn’t turn into tragedy, either, but my father had to stay down wind for a couple of weeks.

If you knew my Aunt June, you know she liked to talk. To anyone. One time, I decided to see just how much. She had phoned a company she had never contacted before and was speaking with a customer-service representative she had never talked to. They were talking about schools they had been to, places they’d been, and so forth.

She kept him on the phone for 45 minutes. I timed it.

Those are just a few stories. If you have any, we would love to hear them. Please put them on her obituary page at Gawler’s Web site.

Wait—there’s one more story. Aunt June was hit with serious illness in 2015, when she was 91. When she got out of rehab, she wanted to do everything she had done before. Including drive. Would you have tried to stop her?

She had to pass a driving test, so she called a school and took their on-the-road exam. When it was over, she asked the instructor how she scored. He said she had done very well on all parts of the test, but he had one comment. He said, You need to ease up on the accelerator.

She never did.

Prepared for the Pastor, But Not Used

Her adventurous spirit sometimes got her into trouble. She met her husband-to-be, Richard (Dick) Dickinson, at Asbury College, in Wilmore, Kentucky (It was a college then, not a university.)

Kentucky is full of limestone and limestone is full of caves. One time, they decided to explore one. They didn’t tell anyone where they were going. They didn’t even tell anyone that they were going somewhere. They had a flashlight. What could go wrong?

They found the cave and entered with no trouble. At one point, they were crawling through the dirt and muck when they came to an incline, where they had to use their hands as well as their feet to pull themselves up. My Uncle Dick took the lead. He clamped the flashlight in his teeth, and they inched their way up the rocky grade.

A question popped into Aunt June’s mind. She asked her companion (She always said she used him as an encyclopedia, because he was so smart he always knew the answers.) He knew the answer this time, too, and started to tell her. As soon as he opened his mouth, the flashlight clattered to the bottom of the cave and went out, leaving them in utter darkness.

They backed down the slope very, very carefully. When they reached the bottom, Aunt June groped around on the floor of the cave. Finally, she touched the flashlight. In hope and fear, she tried the switch. The light came on. They never went caving again without telling anyone. And she never told anyone this story for a long, long time.

A neighbor told us about this next incident, because he couldn’t believe his eyes. He was in his yard, when he saw Aunt June driving home in her big, Honda SUV.

Aunt June loved animals … but not all animals. She had a running grudge against deer that sneaked into her yard and ate the flowers she worked so hard on.

Just before she got to her driveway, she spotted a deer beside the house. Without hesitating, she turned onto the grass, gunned the engine, and ran the deer off the property.

She didn’t tell us about it. She didn’t think it was anything out of the ordinary. We had to hear it from someone else who was astonished.

— End —