THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 4, 1995 TAG: 9506010071
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KRYS STEFANSKY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 167 lines
SAY ``JUNE BRIDES'' and hear people sigh.
The first month of summer means a mad rush toward matrimony. Two years ago, in 1993, 252,000 couples across the United States marched to the altar in June. It was the second busiest month for weddings that year. Only August saw more brides.
Quite a few years ago, before many of this weekend's brides were even born, June Sonosky, June Browning, and June Crawford didn't get married in June.
These are June brides of a different kind. They're real June brides - brides named June.
With 118 years of marital bliss between them, they know something about marriage. Here's their advice - and that of other Junes - about love, life and making things work.
On a dreary, wet February day in New Hampshire 34 years ago, June L. Sonosky arrived at church in stocking feet.
``It was rainy, cold and nasty,'' recalled the Virginia Beach resident. She wore a full-length, long-sleeved gown stitched with seed pearls, a mandarin collar, no shoes and an 8-foot train.
``It was humongous. Three people had to get me out of the car, holding my dress out of the water and keeping me covered,'' Sonosky said. ``I had a raincoat thrown over my head. I was always told that if it rains on your wedding day, it's very bad luck. But we've proven it wrong.''
Could be because Sonosky and her husband, Bob, are opposites. ``Always marry an opposite,'' she advised. ``He's the one that does the talking and I'm the one that sits back and listens and withdraws and takes it from there. I detest arguments. He's more of an outspoken person and voices his opinion.
``The biggest thing, I think, is to put each other first. Just watch out for each other and listen to each other,'' said Sonosky, 53.
Over in Chesapeake, June Browning has always had a soft spot for things ``June.''
``My mother was born in June, her name was June, I was born in June, she named me June, she met my father in June, she got married in June,'' Browning said.
June Browning broke ranks in 1958. That spring, wearing a light green suit, she married in April. She chose Darrell Browning, a person with an opposite temperament.
``I always feel like people born in June are even-tempered - they call them moon babies - and that they marry people who are opposite,'' said Browning, a secretary in the Virginia Beach Police Department.
When the years go by and the kids are little, the going can get rough, Browning said. That's when it's important for a woman to keep her own identity.
``That kind of saves you,'' she said. ``You have to do the things you like to do even though your husband may not like to do those things.''
She's 60 now, the mother of three and grandmother of two, a seasoned wife who can look back with satisfaction on her early years as a bride.
``Take one day at a time and don't give up,'' she advised. ``People didn't jump out of marriage so easily when we got married. In later years, your marriage is really what matters. When you look back on it, you see it was worth it.''
GOOD TIMING and a good pot roast have been the secrets to June Crawford's long marriage. For 48 years, both helped keep the peace in her Portsmouth home.
``Never go to bed angry and never argue before you give your husband a nice meal. If you have any problems to discuss, wait till after you've eaten, because everybody's tired before,'' she said, allowing that she learned this the hard way.
Crawford, 68, says a shared Christianity has been the main tie between her and her spouse. And marriages were simpler to manage in her day, she imagines. She's always been a homemaker. Her husband, Elbert, was vice president of Ethan Allen Crawford House before he retired from the family furniture business.
JUNE F. TURNER remembers everything about her wedding day 36 years ago. Especially the part where Raymond, the groom, climbed through the window in his tuxedo to get into the church.
``He didn't get to the church on time and couldn't get in the back way and didn't want to walk through the front door. I was in a dither, '' she remembered. But she didn't make a scene. That policy has served this retired Portsmouth schoolteacher well throughout her marriage.
``Two people can't argue at the same time. Let him have his say. Let him get it out of his system, and then I'll wait till after he's cooled down and talk about how I feel,'' she said.
``Believe in one another, work together, stay with God and don't try to get everything that you can get the first two or three months of marriage. Take your time and don't get in debt over your head.''
COMMUNICATION IS the secret to a lasting marriage, says June Larue. She's had a chance to experiment. The first time, she was married for 12 years. The next, it lasted 24. They're still counting.
``I think you've got a good comparison if you've done it before. My second husband is a good talker. We haven't missed a night of sitting down and talking over a little glass of wine,'' said Larue, a middle school secretary in Virginia Beach.
Her advice to newlyweds is: ``Be friends. Like the guy. Don't love him, like him. That love goes out the window, but that liking will say there.''
And if there's a squabble, settle it, fast.
``Don't let it sit. Talk about it right away,'' she said.
JUNE KAY FREEMAN, who nearly suffocated all 250 of her wedding guests in stifling heat 31 years ago, has similar advice.
``Marriage is not about one person. It's about being friends with each other,'' she said.
Her wedding was the first test of friendship between her and her new husband. The Princess Anne County natives got married on a steamy August afternoon in 1963 in Tabernacle United Methodist Church near Sandbridge. She was 18 and insisted on living a girlhood dream - to marry by candlelight even though at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the wooden church was hot, really hot.
``I wanted the shutters pulled and the candles lit,'' she recalled. The standing-room-only crowd dripped sweat as they watched Freeman, in a tea-length satin gown, and her groom, Gerald, say their vows.
Freeman's corsage survived the heat. She keeps it pressed in the Bible she carried that day and looks at it sometimes and remembers.
JUNE H. ABBOTT can't forget the wedding march. At her first wedding, guests heard the refrain over and over and over.
``We used a record player and it got hung,'' Abbott recalled. It was a sign that Abbott would be doing this again.
She's been married three times, the first two times to the same groom. ``The third time, I got married to prove to myself that it was the person I was married to and not me. But maybe it wasn't,'' she said, chuckling.
Single again at 48, she says marriage is hard.
``You really got to work at it. It's not something that comes easily. I don't think people take it as seriously as they should,' she said.
WAITING TO GET married, is a better idea, says June Zadan, a Virginia Beach resident.
``I think getting married in your 30s is great,'' Zadan said. ``I had a goal to go to different places. I taught school in different states and wanted to meet the man I really wanted to be with.''
She found him. On a snowy January day 34 years ago, when she was 29, they said their vows in front of 20 guests in a tiny church in New York State. Today the couple has two grown children.
Zadan calls herself ``a saver.'' When her only daughter Claire is ready, she can lend Claire her lace wedding dress, her headpiece and even the bells from the top of her wedding cake.
JUNE W. HURST is a saver, too. She hung onto the light blue, above-the-knee dress she married in 23 years ago.
``It's not fit to wear anywhere,'' said the Smithfield resident. ``I keep it for sentimental reasons. It was one of those really happy days, and it helps remind me.'' Every time she sorts her closets, she considers throwing it away but then puts it back.
Could be because she's thankful she survived her wedding night.
``The first night of our honeymoon, we took an unopened bottle of champagne to drink in our hotel room. We drank part of it and recorked it. The cork blew off in the middle of the night and scared both of us to death. We thought somebody had shot us,'' she said.
Finish the bubbly before bedtime and look at marriage as a 50-50 proposition is her advice.
``Be considerate and spare each other's feelings,'' she said. ``We share. We help each other. He's just as good with the housework as I am, and I can help him in the yard. It's a two-way street.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photos
JUNE CRAWFORD
JUNE TURNER
JUNE FREEMAN
JUNE LARUE
JUNE ZADAN
JUNE BROWNING
JUNE HURST
by CNB