June Danforth was never one to give up.
As a child recovering from a deadly infection, a fierce advocate for her community and a wife and mother working on the farm – family and friends remember the long-time Turner Valley-area resident for her tenacity and will to persevere.
Long-time friend Evelyn Richmond said Danforth was a remarkable person who left a considerable mark on the community.
“I don’t think anyone who is a new member of our community has any idea of the input that she’s had in the community,” she said.
Danforth passed away at her home in Calgary on March 19. She was 93.
Danforth was born Nicholas June Denning in June of 1922 on the Bar VX Ranch southwest of Turner Valley.
She attended the one-room Lineham School in Turner Valley and the Turner Valley High School. She married her high school sweetheart Owen Danforth in 1943 and purchased a ranch southwest of town in 1947.
They were married for 72 years and lived on their ranch until last fall when they moved to south Calgary.
Danforth’s daughter Jackie Lacey said her mother loved history and the arts. She was an artist, poet and photographer.
Danforth was a driving force behind many facilities and programs in Black Diamond and Turner Valley. And, said Lacey, she was gifted at rallying people behind her.
When the Turner Valley Hospital was slated to be closed, Danforth took up the mantle to lead efforts lobbying the provincial government to build a new hospital and a seniors’ facility.
Her persistence paid off when the Oilfields Hospital and High Country Lodge opened.
“In those days the Turner Valley hospital was such a small facility… but if it closed at that time our closest hospital would’ve been High River and for the west end that’s quite a jaunt for a lot people,” said Lacey.
Danforth was instrumental in building the Valley Neighbours Club in Turner Valley and she was a founding member of the Sheep Creek Arts Council, serving as the council’s president for 25 years.
In the 1980s, Danforth lead efforts to publish the book In the Light of the Flares, chronicling Turner Valley’s history. She helped form a committee to work on the book and was its editor in chief.
Danforth also created the first adult education program in the region in the 1970s and she formed two 4H clubs, the Stockland Beef Club and the Buttons and Bows Sewing Club.
As busy as she was with all her work in the community, Lacey said her mother lead much of the work on the family’s ranch because her father was often away to work.
It all could have turned out quite different. Danforth narrowly survived a serious infection as a child.
At the age of six, Danforth came down with osteomyelitis after stepping on a piece of bone while playing barefoot in the yard. The disease is a serious bone infection that nearly took her life. Her leg would have been amputated if not for her doctor’s refusal to give up on his patient.
“It really was a hopeless case,” said Lacey.
Danforth’s survival was near-miraculous in the era before penicillin, but it wasn’t without great hardship. She went through major surgery to scrape the infection from the bone and she spent a year in hospital. The wound was left open and was regularly bathed in carbolic acid and iodine. It was another two years after she went home before her leg healed enough for her to return to school.
Lacey said the experience gave her mother an incredible drive and tenacity to do whatever she could to perfection.
“Part of it would’ve been that Christian work ethic, that Victorian ethic that she grew up with because my grandparents were the same way,” she said. “That sense that you don’t leave a job half finished, you just don’t quit. You keep at it until you get the result you want.”
Richmond said Danforth was a loving and persistent personality.
She took over from Danforth as president of the arts council. Richmond said there were big shoes to fill but she knew everything would be okay when Danforth told her she was leaving the group in good hands.
In fact, Richmond credited Danforth with keeping the Sheep River Arts council alive during a time of dwindling membership.
“She was one of those torches that wouldn’t let it die and just kept pushing on even though membership dropped right down to maybe 15 people,” she said. “She was persevering and saying this was going to come back and it certainly did.”
Richmond said Danforth was also a gifted artist and a bit of a perfectionist.
It was this spirit that guided whatever she chose to do, she said.
“It didn’t matter what she tackled, she would certainly make sure she gave it her very, very best,” she said.
