June 1, 2026, 88, Goldsboro – Mamie June Norman Alderman went to be with the Lord on June 1, 2026. June was born on October 19, 1937 in Jacksonville, Florida, to Carl Charles Norman, Sr. and Inez Vituria Augustine Norman. A beautiful baby, she even won a beauty contest when she was just a few months old, and a framed photo of her in her miniature tiara and sash sat on her parents’ dresser until her adulthood.
June attended Andrew Jackson High School and its feeder schools in Jacksonville, and she was an active member of Epperson Memorial Church during her childhood and young adult years. A wonderful Methodist minister noticed something special in her, and applied, on her behalf for a scholarship to Florida Southern College. When that minister came to tell her the news that she had been accepted, had a scholarship and room and board were paid for, she broke down in tears, as college had not been something she thought she could ever afford.
Her college years were wonderful. There she met amazing friends and had the opportunity to serve as secretary to Warren Willis at the United Methodist Camp in Leesburg. The Willis family treated her like family and taught her many things about life and true Christian love. And, Miss Evelyn even taught her how to drink her coffee black so as to never trouble a hostess with “unnecessary requests”.
June majored in English at Florida Southern, and she interned as a schoolteacher at Bartow Jr High in Bartow, Florida. Before becoming a full-time English teacher at St. Augustine High School, she did work for a couple of Methodist churches doing youth work and directing Christian ministries. She traveled to Cuba as a missionary at a dangerous time in Cuban history just prior to the Communist Revolution in 1959.
While working at St. Augustine High School and still working in her local church, she met John Eugene Masters, a seminarian in the Catholic faith, at an ecumenical gathering. They married a year later, and a year after that welcomed their first child, Carla. Four years later, their second daughter, Nancy arrived, and shortly after that the family moved to Tallahassee.
In Tallahassee, June was hired by Principal John Lawrence at Amos P Godby high school where she worked from 1971 to 1985. While at Godby, she taught speech and debate and even led her team to victory at Nationals in the 1970s. Some of her fondest memories are those she had of and with those students, whom she loved.
After leaving Godby, June went on to work as an assistant principal at Bellevue Middle, Deerlake Middle and Lincoln High School. She dearly loved what was deemed “creative discipline” with kids, and she always believed there wasn’t such a thing as “one size fits all” when it came to that. Her teachers loved her and she loved them.
Though they remained friends, June and Gene were divorced when Carla left for college. While attending administrator meetings at the district office in Leon County, June caught the eye of Sam Alderman, the principal of Ruediger Elementary School. A colorful character, Sam spent some creative energy trying to convince June to go out on a date with him. She finally was convinced he was worth giving a chance to when she found out that he had bought a run-down old truck from a guy in a parking lot in Carabelle in order to get back to town to take her out.
Sam and June had 29 years of marriage together and spent much of that loving on grandchildren, traveling and laughing, a lot. June loved to travel, the theater, listening to audio books and her family. Anyone who knew her knew the special relationship she had with her brother, Carl, or “brother” as she called him.
June loved the United Methodist Church, and she served as president of the United Methodist Women at St. Pauls UMC in Tallahassee, where she and Sam also attended the Burleigh Law Sunday School Class and had many friends.
June is preceded in death by her parents, her husband Sam, her brother Carl, and sister-in-law, Sara. She leaves as her legacy daughters Carla (Masters) Cottrell, Nancy (Masters) Nelson, Sons-In-Law Peter Cottrell and Bill Nelson, grandchildren Katy Riggio (Mike), Molly Nelson (Andrew), Meghan Scrivener (Branden), Jesse Nelson and Ava Nelson. Furthering her legacy will be great-grandchildren Madison and Austin Riggio, Luna Murphey, and Stella Scrivener. She is also survived by a special niece Kelley Norman (Bob Gerard), and two beloved nephews Todd and Robert Norman, all of Macclenny, Florida.
It was June’s wish to celebrate her life in a family gathering in Maggie Valley, North Carolina, where many of her happy memories with Sam took place.
We extend our deepest condolences to the family and please continue to keep the family in your thoughts and prayers, during their time of bereavement.
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