June O. Beaty

Green-eyed June Olim Beaty, age 75, died the afternoon of May 4, 2024, with her devoted husband and surviving son alongside in her adopted hometown of San Antonio, Texas. Complications from Alzheimer’s disease, after a titanic struggle lasting over a dozen years, ended the good life of this kind woman.

June was born, through no fault of her own, in Norman, Oklahoma, on October 5, 1948. Her parents, Nathan and Helen Olim eventually relocated June and elder sister Lee to the Texas Coast. While part of the Class of 1966 at Brazosport High in Lake Jackson, she worked countless hours with her parents in the family business, a menswear store called Milo’s. Her fondest memory of that labor was her father negotiating swaps of suits for chests of just-caught shrimp with Gulf fishermen. She had good friends, a bulldog named Priscilla, and burned millions of calories dancing. She never could restrain herself once “Gloria” or “Treat Her Right” began.

After taking a degree in retail business from Texas Tech University and living for a time in Illinois, June found herself in San Antonio with honeyed years ahead. A college acquaintance named Mike Beaty, once too wild to safely hold eye contact with, proved a decade on to be the love of her life, and on February 9, 1982, they were married in a ceremony budgeted at $27.50, including parking. And although she compared childbirth to a marathon version of the worst scene in “Alien,” her sons Evan and Nathan brought her rare joy that she rushed to spread.

She loved stories and personalities, learning, to thrill at surprise, to be made to laugh. Scores of good people weep at the loss of her fried chicken recipe. Ditto her holy, uniced spice cake (sometimes apple, usually plum), equally suited to dessert and breakfast. Despite working full-time as the office manager for Beaty Palmer Architects, she periodically moonlit as a substitute kindergarten teacher just for smiles and concurrently founded the first After School Program at Cambridge Elementary. When a furniture commercial was to be filmed one morning on her front porch, June stayed up the night before making sheet after sheet of cookies from scratch, worried the crew would be hungry and having never heard the phrase “craft services” before. She stocked her pantry with foods only eaten by other people’s children, she rejoiced when cardinals paired off, she gave constantly, and it was her delight.

June Beaty loved her husband and sons; she loved Milk Duds, houses built against slopes, Technicolor romances, hoodoos, torch songs, the backbeat. Yellow roses in cut glass, old copper, old oak, the sound of waves breaking. She taught to talk to shy people, listen to thunderstorms, read, that gardening is exercise and that if you cut the Rose of Sharon down, it stays down. She loved what you love just because you love it.

Her life was a gift, and she shared it. In that spirit, her family will host a Memorial Service in her memory at 10 AM on Monday, May 13, at Porter Loring on McCullough. In lieu of flowers or gifts, the family requests donations be directed to the Alzheimer’s Association, the Animal Defense League of Texas, or the Texas Parks & Wildlife Foundation