June Beresford Hazlehurst

1928 - 2023

June Beresford Hazlehurst

June 12, 1928 - October 15, 2023

Jesus, put the kettle on, I'm coming home for tea. -Liptons T4:2

June Hazlehurst of Roanoke, VA, slipped quietly between the sofa cushions on October 15, after 95 years of spunk and mischief. She was born in Coventry, England to Harry Beresford, a poet and a socialist, and Winifred Bentley-Humphriss, a WW1 field nurse and a feminist.

June grew up as a tomboy in Manchester in the '30s with her two older brothers, where she was regularly sent home from school and scouts for unladylike behavior. She was separated from her family and evacuated to Wales when WW2 broke out, a sadness that forever colored her outlook on children and war. She was soon returned to Manchester, and at the tender age of twelve became a proud member of the VAJFD, the Vincent Avenue Junior Fire Department, a group of neighborhood kids who made a game of dashing from the bomb shelters to look for unexploded Nazi bombs hanging from trees.

June went on to study nursing and midwifery at Manchester Royal Infirmary. She scrubbed for the first open-heart surgery in England and rode her bike through the back streets of Manchester to deliver countless babies. This influenced her firm lifelong belief that reproductive care is healthcare, not politics. June took holidays with girlfriends riding their Vespa scooters through France, hitchhiking through Italy, and skiing in Scotland with handsome young doctors.

June sailed on a steamship to Newark, NJ for a nursing exchange program in 1957 where she worked at Beth Israel Hospital and experienced the thrill of life near NYC ("so many kinds of beans!"). She returned to Manchester two years later and soon met her future husband, David, who had also briefly lived in the US, having completed a post-doc in Austin, TX. They married after three weeks and had their first child, William, who died of biliary atresia when he was just six months old.

Devastated by their loss and eager to experience the exhilaration of life in the US again, David and June moved to Martinsville, Virginia in 1963 where David took a job with DuPont, and June stayed home to raise their new baby, Tim. Naomi was born the next year, soon becoming the favorite (says Naomi), and June threw herself into creating an idyllic life for her family: sewing, cooking and baking, gardening, arts and crafts, music, camping, story-telling, skiing, and lots of sailing and racing at Virginia Inland Sailing YC at Smith Mountain Lake. June was a trailblazer for women's rights, helping to establish the battered women's shelter in the Martinsville area and organizing marches for the Equal Rights Amendment and for sensible gun laws.

June and David moved to Richmond in 1983 where they built a wonderful life, racing sailboats at Fishing Bay Yacht Club on the Chesapeake and participating in the Fan District Association. June worked as a realtor, a Master Gardener, and as the head of the Million Mom March's Richmond division. Horrified by the explosion of gun violence in recent times, readers should know that she is looking down from heaven and taking names.

June was known as Grummy (Grandma + Mummy) to those who loved her, and she always had a song in her heart, a twinkle in her eye, and a plastic spider in her purse for an emergency prank. She will be enjoying a cuppa tea on the tip of the moon with David, her beloved husband of 57 years, her infant son William, her brothers John and Michael, her brother-in law Peter, and many treasured cats who sashayed through her life.

Those left to be inspired by her unflinching courage, strength, and humor include her adoring family and friends: her son Tim and his wife Gwen of Cary, NC, her daughter Naomi and husband Bob Delzell of Roanoke, VA; grandchildren Hannah Hazlehurst of Salisbury, NC, Rachel and Alex Corvin (and the great grands, Claire and Elizabeth) of Apex, NC, Zach and Julia Hazlehurst of Apex, NC, and Will Hazlehurst of Raleigh, NC, not to mention Sophie Delzell of Roanoke, VA (grand-kittens Rosie and Peaches), and Fiona Delzell of Richmond, VA; Also, her sisters-in-law across the pond, Jill Hazlehurst of Kingsley, Cheshire, and Cynthia Beresford of Westbere, Kent; and loving nieces and nephews in England and Portugal; and Marianne Downey Yirmibesoglu (Korhan, Pelin, Ela and Aylin) of Roanoke, VA.

A special thanks to Good Samaritan Hospice who took such good care of Grum and her family in her final months. Without doubt, our mum would not have been able to spend her final years in her home without the stellar love and care she received from Team Grummy: Mary Tootsie Smith, Norma Jean Burdette, Pam Knight, Makhboula Harane, Becky Jackson, Lisa Neilsen, Sunny Wiley (who knows where the bodies are buried), and Heather Millar- all who adored and were adored by Grummy. And the cats--Dear Lord, the cats--who have been keeping vigil for lo these last four years.

Grummy's final finger to the patriarchy was last week's car trip to vote early in the Virginia House and Senate elections, and we encourage you, gentle reader, to go and vote in Grummy's honor, and then toast her with a glass of bourbon.

If you are so inclined, you could make a donation to Angels of Assisi, Planned Parenthood, or Brady: United Against Gun Violence. Or you could consider adopting a shelter pet.

The family will hold a Bon Voyage Grummy-Palooza for this saucy old gal in early November. Please contact the family for details.

Tally ho, Grummy! Mischief managed.