June Leafblad

July 1939 - October 8, 2024

Mrs Leafblad was a music teacher for the South Pasadena Junior and Senior High Schools from 1967 to 1971.

June Leafblad passed away at the age of 85 after a long battle with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases in Fort Worth, Texas. 

June was born to Melvin and Edna McGillivray of Waukegan, Illinois and attended Waukegan Township High School from which she graduated in the top ten percent of her class in 1957. She did her college work at Bethel College, St Paul, Minnesota, majoring in music education. During her college years she was a studio accompanist for several voice professors, a church organist and pianist, and a choir singer in various churches in the Twin Cities. She was also the alto in a ladies' trio which presented concerts in dozens of churches and other venues in the Upper Midwest.

After graduating in 1962, she immediately began her teaching career as a public school music teacher in the West St Paul school system. In 1964 she married her friend from childhood, Bruce Leafblad, who at that time was halfway through his seminary education. In 1966, following a move to Colorado, she continued her career as a music teacher in the Windsor Elementary School of Windsor, Colorado. During that same year, she also served as a studio accompanist at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley.

A subsequent move to California led June to a new teaching post as junior high and senior high school music teacher in the schools of South Pasadena, where she taught from 1967 to 1971. During this time a set of twins were born into the Leafblad family, and a whole new occupation came into play - that of 'mother of twins!'

In 1974, June became the Director of the Choir School of Lake Avenue Church (Pasadena) where she was responsible for the largest children's choir program in the San Gabriel Valley. During her years of leadership this children's music program grew from two choirs to six choirs comprised of more than two hundred children annually. During these same years June became certified as an Orff Instructor of the Orff-Schulwerk Music Education methodology which maximizes the musical training of children through the use of instruments made especially for them.

After 13 years in Southern California the family returned to Minneapolis for three years, in which June served a children's choir director at Bethlehem Baptist Church. Moving to Texas in 1983, June established a piano studio in Southwest Fort Worth, where she has taught children, youth and adults for some 25 years. During these years she was an active member of the Fort Worth Music Teachers Association in which she occupied various leadership positions, and organized and adjudicated numerous piano festivals. During these same years she used her keyboard skills in a variety of ways in the churches where she and her family were members. 

During her retirement years June accompanied her husband on trips to Taiwan and Indonesia, where she  conducted numerous workshops and choral clinics for directors and accompanists of children's choirs. In the closing years of her life, June battled two devastating diseases:  Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. After almost five years she succumbed to the growing impact of those diseases.

June is survived by her husband of 60 years, Bruce Leafblad; her son, Stewart (Toni) Leafblad; her daughter, Stefani (David) Massongill; and five grandchildren.

Greenwood Funeral Home, October 18, 2024