June Colwell fell in love with the country life during her Kentucky childhood, and she’s carried those sensibilities with her through the years. She found joy and happiness in a less-than-typical, sometimes challenging upbringing.
And, for the past three decades, she’s made her home at Butterfield Trail Village. Arriving in 1994, at 59 years young, she’s now BTV’s longest-tenured resident. She’s created a comfortable home for herself in her cottage, surrounded by mementoes of travels across the United States and abroad.
When she moved into the cottage, she wallpapered the living room and dining area with broad, textured, horizontal stripes of tan and white — intentionally resembling the interior of a log cabin.
June remembers how women in her youth creatively fashioned clothing from used feed sacks. Over the years, she developed her own passion for working with textiles. She’s made dozens of quilts and other textile art, with many pieces adorning the walls and surfaces of her cottage home.
She rotates these textiles and quilts as décor over the changing seasons. In late summer, a quilt featuring the colors of New Mexico — orange, turquoise, deep blue — and reminiscent of a traditional Native American blanket covered a living room wall. In a nearby glass-enclosed wooden barrister cabinet, more than a dozen other pieces waited their turn to be displayed.
Her grandmother’s butter churn, her great-aunt’s trunk and a coffee table fashioned from a refinished Canadian grain dolly also decorate her living room. The dining room’s built-in bookcases hold novels by Donald Harington, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Leon Uris and Colson Whitehead, alongside a stack of non-fiction volumes by the journalist Rick Bragg.
A Childhood in the Country
June was born in 1935 during the Depression in Hickman, Kentucky, a small town in the southwest corner of the state along the banks of the Mississippi River. The local doctor delivered her at her maternal grandparents’ big white farmhouse on a bluff above the river. She and her parents lived in a shotgun house on the property until she was 3, when her parents left to look for work, her baby brother in tow.
At the time, June’s youngest aunt and uncle, still teenagers, also lived in her grandparents’ home. Though young, she enjoyed sledding with them and watching them ice skate on the frozen cattle pond in winter. The family played board games and card games, danced and sang in harmony as her grandmother played the piano, and all went to church on Sundays.
Her grandfather grew cotton, sweet potatoes and other vegetables for local markets on the 200-acre farm and drove her to a two-room schoolhouse in his old truck. She played in the house where the sweet potatoes cured and cut out paper dolls from the Sears Roebuck catalog. Even after World War II started, June stayed there and continued to bond with her grandparents who were raising her. Her paternal grandparents lived on property nearby, and June was the first grandchild on both sides.
“During that time, that’s where I really formed a lot of my love of the country and the simple life,” she said.
An older uncle was a college professor who became an Air Force test pilot during the war. His death in a plane crash in Waco, Georgia, devastated her grandparents. June’s parents then brought June to live with them and her brother in Memphis, where they’d found work.
Moving from the country to Memphis, some 155 miles downriver, was a shock for June. At age 10, she started fourth grade in a three-story school and did her best to adjust to the big city and life with her parents. In her teen years, she grew to love blues music and attended sock dances at school.
June recalls babysitting for a neighbor, who made clothes for June and taught her to cook; June still uses her fudge recipe. Every school break into her teens, including summers, June returned to her grandparents’ farm. She fondly describes driving with friends down a dirt road, turning on their headlights, cranking up car radios and dancing.
June’s parents bought a house when she was in 10th grade, finally giving her a bedroom rather than sleeping on the couch. After high school, June was expected to get a job, while her younger brother would go to Christian Brothers College and Memphis State, and then serve as a lieutenant in the Air Force.
Balancing Work and Family
June worked at a multi-story Sears Roebuck mail-order plant, where catalog orders were fulfilled. Merchandise was organized throughout the facility, and customers’ orders from across the South were put together in the shipping room. Orders were then shipped to city and town storefronts for local customers to pick up.
“I was a hard worker. I would do anything they told me to do because I was going to be successful,” she said.
June started in an office sorting the order tickets and then managed time cards and did bookkeeping using spreadsheets, essentially personnel tasks. One day, the CEO asked her to help other areas better manage their payroll, so they stayed within budget. Each area handled payroll differently, and he wanted a uniform system. June trained bookkeepers and secretaries, and the revamp process took about three years.
During that time, June got married and had a daughter. When her husband died in a car wreck, June moved closer to work so she could walk, while a babysitter watched her daughter. She soon married again, and they had a son, then later divorced. She worked at Sears Roebuck for 26 years.
June met her third husband, Philip Colwell, through friends. Philip’s brother and sister-in-law worked with June at the plant; they invited her on a float trip in Arkansas, where she met Philip. He and June developed a long-distance relationship. After about three years, she moved to Fayetteville, where Philip owned and operated Oak Plaza Pharmacy. They married in 1979.
When June moved here, she brought her adult son, who had developmental disabilities, and got him connected to services through Ozark Guidance Center. She eventually settled him into an apartment in Springdale; he died about 12 years ago.
Three years after June and Philip married, Philip was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease, or cancer of the lymph nodes. Through surgeries and chemotherapy, he kept the pharmacy running with help from a good staff. The couple traveled when they could, from Yellowstone to the Tetons, and particularly enjoyed New Mexico and Arizona.
Exploring a Creative Life
Photo by Iron Lotus Creative / Stephen Ironside
Maybe not surprisingly, June also stumbled into the practice of quilt making. June’s affinity for quilts is partly sentimental. Her grandmother kept quilts on the beds and would place a hot water bottle in a quilt to warm the bed in their country house. Later on, her mother started quilting.
“I’ve been around quilts, it seems like, my whole life,” June said.
After moving to Fayetteville in 1979, June had time on her hands because Philip didn’t see the need for her to work. So, she planted flower gardens and redecorated their house. When she ran out of projects, she explored quilting. Her mom gave her some fabric, and she did more research of her own. Then she connected with another quilter at a local fabric store, who belonged to the Quilt Guild of Northwest Arkansas, which June also joined.
June learned how to create and piece together fabrics to design the front of the quilt, and how to put the batting in between the front and back of the quilt, and then secure those together with more stitching. She bought a new Bernina sewing machine back then, which she still uses, often while listening to jazz.
“The way I learned how to quilt is, I watched a seasoned quilter,” she said. “I used to do all the handwork — the quilting part, not just piecing but the actual stitching, putting it together.”
In the years since, June has completed quilts from patterns, plus many of her own ideas. One of the most challenging quilts features overlapping circles. She’s designed various compositions of textile art, making table runners and experimenting with appliqué. Arthritis now impacts which projects she attempts, but it hasn’t slowed her creativity. “At this point in my life, I’m designing whatever comes to my mind.”
Making a Lasting Home at BTV
About 15 years after June and Philip married, they started thinking about their long-term care. Philip’s mother was an early resident soon after BTV opened, and he suggested they downsize and move to BTV too. They moved in 1994, when he was 62, and she was 59.
He retired from work, continued to have surgeries and got along well for many years. They took advantage of the BTV amenities and activities, and enjoyed acting in plays together. After about 10 years, Philip got very sick and passed away.
“So, I stayed right here, and I’ve made a wonderful life right here at Butterfield,” she said. “And then something else happened.”
About 10 years ago, June met a fellow BTV resident, Jerry Rose, a widower who lives in a cottage just down the street from hers. A former anthropology professor at the University of Arkansas, he was very interested in her lecture about a Black history quilt she’d made.
He brought her a book he’d written, and then they started bumping into each other around the BTV campus. Their friendship grew from there, and they’ve been companions ever since.
They eat dinners together, watch their favorite TV series, and enjoy attending plays and other performances at TheatreSquared and Walton Arts Center. They like trying new restaurants, such as the 1834 Tavern Lafayette.
June had never traveled beyond Canada and Mexico before meeting Jerry. Knowing that she is very interested in World War II, he planned a trip to Poland, where the invasion that started the war occurred in 1939. Another time, they went with a BTV tour to France, where they visited Omaha Beach.
Closer to home, June enjoys visiting with her daughter, Toya, and son-in-law, Michael, who live in Memphis. And she adores her granddaughter Ashley, and great-grandson, Luke. She is also very close to her two stepsons, Ted Colwell and Wade Colwell, and their families. She spends a lot of time reading, including books about the Holocaust, and novels by Kristin Hannah.
June tries to be an understanding person and has a way of making people feel at ease. As a long-time BTV resident, she also has come to tremendously appreciate the committed staff who work daily to ensure residents are comfortable, safe and well cared for.
Words by Michelle Parks | Photos by Stephen Ironside
