Oleta June Pierce

Born May 25, 1934, at Shady Point, LeFlore County, Okla., June grew up the oldest of seven children, several of whom testify that she was like a second mother. The family moved a handful of times during the Great Depression and World War II, raising crops and livestock where they could. She would occasionally tell her children about those hardscrabble days of her youth, of picking cotton and tending crops, helping her mother with household work and learning resilience and hospitality—the latter of which seemed to be one of her gifts and greatest joys.

The family eventually moved in Latimer County, settling near the town of Red Oak, which was where she met the love of her life, Jerry Marshall Pierce, when they were about 15. By age 17, having gone together for about a year, Jerry told June one evening: “I’m going to marry you someday.” Later asked by one of her kids what she thought about that, she replied, “Well, I kinda’ felt the same way.”

Before her senior year at Red Oak in the summer of 1952, June’s father took a job in Chandler, Okla., and the family moved. June graduated high school in Chandler, but the distance between June and Jerry didn’t dampen their love. They married Oct. 9, 1954, in Oklahoma City, and a few months later, Jerry joined the Navy.

During those four years of Navy life, they lived in Bremerton, Wash., San Diego and Hutchinson, Kan., and saw the birth of two of their four children.

While living in Tishomingo, Okla., around 1960, June would later tell how she felt drawn to go to church one Sunday morning, even though she had felt no such attraction prior to that. That day in church, she heard the Good News of salvation through Jesus Christ preached, and it resonated in her heart for the first time. She surrendered to Him that morning, beginning her journey with God.

After Jerry graduated from Central State University in 1962, the family left Oklahoma and moved to Bentley, Kan., and later to Valley Center, Kan., after he took a job teaching math in nearby Wichita. While living in Valley Center, a son and one more daughter were added to the family.

In 1986, they returned to Oklahoma, moving to Edmond where they would settle for their remaining years.

After her children grew up, June worked in retail, serving as an assistant manager of a clothing store in Wichita and manager of a gift shop at Quail Springs Mall in Oklahoma City.

She always kept a clean, well-furnished and organized home, and she loved to have guests, whom she always left feeling well-fed and loved. Her children and grandchildren will miss her homemade bread, cinnamon rolls, Texas sheet cake and other baked goods she almost always made from scratch. But most of all they will miss her warm smile, tender hugs and kisses, wisdom and unconditional love.

June was preceded in death by her parents, Bashel Cole Neal and Mary Loeta Neal; her husband, Jerry Marshall Pierce; two brothers, Jackie Don Neal and Harold Neal; and a sister, Mary Louise Rhodes. Surviving siblings include a sister, Patricia Holbrook of Edmond, Okla.; and two brothers, Joe Neal of Jones, Okla., and Winston Neal of Edmond.

She is also survived by three daughters: Deborah and son-in-law Kent Clifton of Tampa, Fla.; Cynthia and son-in-law Scott Shepard of Edmond; Karen Bowlware, M.D., of Oklahoma City; one son, Jerry and daughter-in-law Melissa, of Flower Mound, Texas; along with eight grandsons, four granddaughters; and 13 great-grandchildren.

Funeral services will be 11 a.m. Friday, Sept. 18 at Hahn-Cook/Street & Draper Funeral Home, 6600 Broadway Ext., Oklahoma City 73116. Burial will follow at Jones IOOF Cemetery, Hiwassee Road and Wilshire, in Jones, Okla.

In lieu of flowers, gifts may be made to Send Relief, a joint global relief and gospel ministry of the International Mission Board and the North American Mission Board—online at SendRelief.org/give.