June Ischy Hicks, 93, died in her home in Chamberlain, April 18.
She was born in Austin, Tex. in 1921, daughter of Euel and Nancy Mae Ischy. She married James Richard Hicks in 1943. He died in 1989.
June attended the University of Texas where she earned a bachelor’s degree in nutrition science and a master’s degree in library science. She taught instrument flying ground school at the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi, Tex. during WWII. It was there she met her husband-to-be, who was a U.S. Navy flight instructor and director of the ground school. As a young couple after the war, she and Jim tried their hand at raising mink in northern Minnesota and then cattle ranching in Texas. Her husband took advantage of the GI Bill to earn a degree in meteorology from the University of Texas and his new career took the couple to the Chicago area in 1955. June was a librarian at Northwestern University until Jim’s job took them to Hanover, N.H. in 1961. There June worked for Dartmouth College where she served as director of the Dartmouth Medical School library and finally as Dartmouth’s Associate Director of Library Services.
She and her husband Jim both held private pilot licenses and were avid flyers, taking frequent cross-country jaunts in their Piper Cherokee.
Although June left her home state of Texas soon after she married, she never completely lost her sweet Texas lilt and always maintained her practice of southern hospitality.
She was an accomplished rug hooker, knitter and weaver, and for many years she gathered weekly with local women in Maine to hook rugs or work on other needlework, share a lunch, and keep up with the neighborhood news. The women called their informal association “The Happy Hookers.”
June was a master cook and a careful collector of antiques. She set an elegant table. A voracious reader to the end, her taste in literature ran widely, from good novels and heady non-fiction to trashy murder mysteries. She was never more than 20 feet from a crossword puzzle book.
She was a woman of quiet strength and conviction who maintained a strong sense of social justice. She practiced the gentle art of common courtesy but was not averse to offering a well-deserved piece of her mind.
She is survived by her son, James Richard Hicks Jr. and wife Peggy Holmes of Chillicothe, Ill.; daughter, Judith Lee Thom of Dade City, Fla.; grandchildren, Virginia Thom of Lutz, Fla., and EmmaLee Holmes-Hicks of Providence, R.I.; and great-grandchildren, Miranda and Oliver Hindahl.
Friends are invited to a memorial open house from 4 to 6 p.m., Sat., July 25 at June’s home, 317 State Rt. 32 in Chamberlain.
Contributions in her memory can be made to the New Harbor Food Pantry, c/o Doug Alcox, PO Box 25, Chamberlain, ME 04541, or Lincoln Health, c/o Development Office, 35 Miles St., Damariscotta, ME 04543.
