June Kowalski

June Kowalski, 73, of Maple Bend, died Thursday, March 12, 2026, at home after a short illness, borne with the same brisk practicality she brought to a Friday fish fry. For forty years she was the engine of the VFW Ladies Auxiliary — its president, its cook, and the undisputed general of a fish-fry line that fed Maple Bend every Friday of Lent for longer than most of the town can remember.

She was born June Marie Sowinski on September 15, 1952, in Grand Rapids, and came to Maple Bend in 1973 as a young bride when she married Edward Kowalski, a Navy man just home from his second hitch. Ed's service made her an auxiliary wife; her own nature made her its heart. She raised three children, kept the books for Ed's excavating business, and somewhere in there took over the VFW kitchen and never gave it back.

Under June the Friday fish fry became an institution. She battered and fried what seemed like half of Lake Michigan every Lenten Friday, ran a line of volunteers with the crisp authority of a mess sergeant, and turned the proceeds into scholarships, heating bills, wheelchair ramps, and honor-guard rifles for a post full of aging veterans too proud to ask. She organized the Memorial Day breakfast and the Christmas boxes, sat with widows, drove veterans to their VA appointments in Grand Rapids, and served as auxiliary president across five decades and more terms than anyone bothered to count — because no one else wanted the job while June was willing, and no one was foolish enough to run against her.

She was salty, funny, and impossible to say no to, a woman who could reduce a room of grown veterans to sheepish boys and have them cheerfully peeling potatoes for the privilege. She played a vicious hand of euchre, kept a spotless house, spoiled her grandchildren without apology, and loved Ed Kowalski with a fierce, teasing loyalty for forty-one years. After she lost him in 2014 she poured what was left into the post, holding that the best cure for her own grief was showing up for someone else's.

She is remembered for her fish fry and her fierce heart, for four decades of turning a fryer and a folding-table line into a safety net for the people who served, and for proving every single Friday that patriotism, in the end, is mostly a matter of who shows up to cook.

She is survived by her children, Michael (Terri) Kowalski of Maple Bend, Lisa (Brian) Achterhof of Wyoming, and Daniel Kowalski of Maple Bend; seven grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; her sister, Janet Sowinski of Grand Rapids; and a VFW post full of veterans who will never again eat a fish fry without missing her.

She was preceded in death by her husband of forty-one years, Edward, in 2014; her parents, Stanley and Helen Sowinski; and her brother, Ronald.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorial contributions be made to the VFW post kitchen June ran for forty years, so the fryer is never cold on a Friday.