Burn, Farrar

June Burn was born Inez Chandler Harris on June 19, 1893, in Anniston, Alabama. She was hired as a staff writer for McCall’s Magazine in 1917, which sparked her interest in writing. June met Farrar Burn (born September 22, 1888) while living in a cabin near Washington, D.C., and the two were wed in 1919.

Because of their mutual love of nature and disregard for the routines of a workaday world, the couple chose to try and find their own island to homestead – a choice that led them across the country to the San Juan Islands in the Puget Sound. They were the last homesteaders in the San Juan Islands, settling on Sentinel Island, just west of the Spieden Channel. It was here that their first son, North, was born. Their second son, Bob (South) Burn was born 29 months later in a hospital near the cabin where June and Farrar had first met.

In 1920 June and Farrar were granted teaching appointments from the Bureau of Education in the Alaska School Service and assigned to Gambell, St. Lawrence Island in Alaska. For a year they lived and worked closely with the Eskimo population there. When June became pregnant with North they came back to the San Juans.

June and Farrar’s adventures took them across the country, and brought them back to a farm on Waldron Island in the San Juans. Prior to settling on Waldron, June and Farrar (and sons) lived in Bellingham, Washington. Farrar built June Acres, two cabins located in the woods surrounding what is now Fairhaven College at Western Washington University. It was during this time that June wrote a daily column for the Bellingham Herald entitled “Puget Soundings,” detailing her own adventures in the area as well as the countless stories of local residents.

The popularity of her column prompted her to create her own weekly newspaper, which was filled with “pictures of this scenic land and with articles and stories by all the writers and leaders of the Northwest.” The paper was popular in Bellingham, but the small audience couldn't justify the costs of the paper. Therefore June and Farrar moved the publication to Seattle for a short time. In all, The Puget Sounder lasted from 1935-1939.

In 1941 June published Living High: An Unconventional Autobiography. Following the success of her book, in 1946 June and Farrar bought a surplus Coast Guard lifeboat and began their “100 Days in the San Juans,” traveling around the islands and collecting stories of the islands and their inhabitants that were printed as a column in the Seattle P.I. The stories were collected together in 1983, and published as a book by the same name.

Later in their lives Farrar traveled the country lecturing on “How to Be Happy, Anyway,” and June taught for a short while at the University of Washington. Their adventures led them all across the country, where they spent time living in New York, Washington D.C., California, Florida, and Arkansas.

In 1967, after deciding not to return to Sentinel Island, June and Farrar moved to a small farm near Fort Smith, Arkansas – Farrar’s home town. June died there in 1969, followed by Farrar in 1975.

From the guide to the June and Farrar Burn Papers, 1888-1992, 1921-1969, (Western Washington University Heritage Resources)