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Women - Hunterdon County, New Jersey

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JUNE AMOS GRAMMER<br />

Artist-designer June Amos Grammer was born<br />

in Woodbury, Gloucester <strong>County</strong>, NJ in 1927 and<br />

raised in Fort Worth, TX. After graduation from<br />

North Texas Agricultural College with a degree in<br />

advertising, she moved to <strong>New</strong> York City, where<br />

she spent the next 25 years working in fashion and<br />

children's book illustration. She was art director for<br />

the Franklin Simon department stores and design<br />

illustrator for the promotion department at Harper's<br />

Bazaar magazine. She taught fashion illustration<br />

at Parsons School of Design for ten years.<br />

An interest in antique dolls prompted her to<br />

study and draw them. This lead to Lenox China<br />

asking her to design porcelain dolls. The dolls,<br />

introduced in 1981, have become prized collectors'<br />

items. At the time of her death she was creating several lines of dolls for the Seymour<br />

Mann Company. June was known in the area as a speaker on doll design and doll<br />

making. She was also recognized for her designs for greeting cards, Christmas<br />

ornaments, books, jewelry and macrame. In 1983, she did the cover and beautiful<br />

illustrations for a book about a doll by Mary Mapes Dodge.<br />

In 1962 she and her artist husband, George, purchased the defunct 1880's<br />

Cokesbury Presbyterian Church in Tewksbury Township from the Cokesbury Methodist<br />

Church, which had been using it as a community center and Sunday school. The<br />

couple devoted years to turning it into a weekend home, with studios in the loft and<br />

living quarters on the main floor. The church/home still kept its original stained glass<br />

windows. A prized possession was a motto embroidered by a friend stating "Church<br />

Sweet Church." The couple maintained an apartment in <strong>New</strong> York City, where they<br />

stayed weekdays, while weekends and off-time were spent in Cokesbury. Once she<br />

started spending weekends in <strong>Hunterdon</strong> <strong>County</strong>, June became active with the<br />

<strong>Hunterdon</strong> Museum of Art. Over the years her works were shown in numerous exhibits<br />

there.<br />

She died on 9 November 1993, at the age of 66. Memorial services celebrating her<br />

life were held at the National Arts Club in <strong>New</strong> York.<br />

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