In loving memory of JUNE DINSMORE
Published June 30, 2026
June Dinsmore passed away peacefully at Harborview Medical Center on May 29, 2026 with her loving Husband Tom at her side.
June grew up in North Seattle, the older of two children born to a homemaker Mom and a Father who owned a lightbulb business and read the Sunday comics to his kids. Home was happy enough but school life unraveled when the family moved to the Ravenna neighborhood. June started Roosevelt HS knowing no one. An average student, she graduated and at 17, wed an older man. Over the next two decades, she raised their two boys and worked as a secretary for the Bellevue School District.
June was caught in a miserable marriage cut off from others. Quiet and self-sacrificing, she stuck it out for 23 years until her younger son was an adult. “My son didn’t leave home when he turned 21,” she says, “his mother did.”
At the age of 40, single and unencumbered, June “did things I should have done at 18.” She partied; she made friends. And on a 4th of July weekend, she went out on a hastily arranged double date with a Vashon guy who took the foursome on a sailing cruise in his trimaran. “Tom and I started talking,” says June, “and we haven’t stopped since.” After a year of courting on weekends, they married.
The newlyweds first lived in a house that Tom had barged years earlier to Burton and when it burned to the ground, bought a view home on the North End. June became a Vashon Schools secretary, doubling as an informal nurse and problem solver, and later took a position as an administrative assistant in King County Superior Court. Meanwhile, Tom introduced her to sailing. With June at the helm, they explored the far reaches of Puget Sound. At the Quartermaster Yacht Club June became the first woman to be elected “Commodore,” the club’s presiding officer.
On Vashon June had a social life that would have been unimaginable to her 40 years ago. Aside from sailing, she was involved in the Garden Club, the Women’s Club and Granny’s Attic. What happened? “Tom,” She says, “He made all the difference.”
June is survived by her husband of 53 years, Tom. Sons Karl (Karen) Polzin, Scott (Nancy) Dinsmore and Dan Dinsmore.
A Graveside service will be held June 20, 2026 at the Vashon Cemetery at 1pm.