June Elizabeth (Fitzpatrick) Hearin

June Elizabeth Fitzpatrick Hearin passed away on November 20, 2024, in Birmingham, Alabama. Born in her grandmother’s farmhouse in Hubble, Kentucky, on June 7, 1932, she was thereupon received into the congregation of nearby McKendree Methodist Church to begin a lifelong journey of faith that included reading the Bible aloud every night with her mother. Meeting Gerry Hearin at Kentucky Wesleyan College led to a broken promise to her father when she did in fact marry a preacher who would take her away from Kentucky, first to seminary in Atlanta and then a career of serving the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church.

Over 43 years of full-time ministry June and Gerry would together serve UMC congregations at Equality, Friendship, Calera, Leeds, Mountain Chapel, Forest Lake Tuscaloosa, Cullman First, Huffman, Trinity Homewood, and finally as the District Superintendent of the Northeast District out of Huntsville. The people that they loved in each of these stops along the way embraced them and their children in a partnership of faith, and those lifelong relationships were in no small measure the result of June’s graceful contribution to their ministry. She loved you, one and all.

June was preceded in death by her husband Gervais Milton Hearin, Jr. and her son Robert Milton Hearin. She is survived by her daughter Lisa Hearin Alexander, her granddaughters Blaire Alexander, Reese Alexander, and Carissa Hearin Hughey, by her grandsons Robert Tyler Hearin and Preston Brock Hearin, and by her numerous great grandchildren.

A celebration honoring June’s life will be held at noon on Wednesday Nov 27th, preceded at 11 am by visitation, at Huffman United Methodist Church, 711 Gene Reed Rd, Birmingham, AL 35235. In lieu of flowers the family asks that expressions of love be directed to the church at that address.