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Faith Family Flowers And Water Sharing Memories With Lovey Burke

photo by provided

photo by provided

photo by provided

photo by provided

photo by provided

Tuesday September 26, 2017

By Cookie Steponaitis

Spending the afternoon with Lovey Burke is really quite a lovely experience. Lovey was born in Queens County, New York in 1918 and named Gertrude, she was called ‘Lovey’ by her Mother because of her sweet disposition at quite a young age. Petite and yet gifted with a steel will and resolve, Lovey and her sister, Ruth, were the only two children. Her father was a fabric salesman and her mother stayed at home which was the norm of that time. “I had a delightful childhood,” reminisced Lovey. “We were in a small neighborhood and the community was on a little bay. I loved swimming and I loved spending time with my parents learning, watching and being together as a family.”    With ninety-eight years of life, sixteen presidents, nine children, twenty-six grandchildren and forty-five great-grandchildren on her list of accomplishments, Lovey Burke has seen much and experienced more. Yet the afternoon was spent talking about what motivates and matters most to this petite dynamo who stands on the cusp of being in the century club; family, faith, flowers, and a special family gathering spot on the lake top the list.    Lovey was born into a generation that she shares “did not long for anything better than what you had, and accepted life as it was.” Lovey grew up with rations, coupons, and families making sacrifices to make ends meet. She learned from her mother a love of cooking and from her dad a love of gardening.   Lovey’s future mate actually lived just around the corner unbeknownst to her.  Lovey did not go to the same church as Gerard ‘Jerry’ Burke, but met as the result of a dance. Lovey belonged to the church group called Girls Friendly Society and each year they had a dance as a fundraiser. “The dance always had lots of guys show up,” explained Lovey. “And Jerry was quite a great dancer. I was convinced at first that he was too old for me. He was four years older than me. But I did invite him to go to my high school prom”, which is a fact her daughter sitting close by had never heard before.    The couple was married on November 21, 1940, settled in the Queens County area and raised a family. Jerry was a New York City Firefighter and Lovey remembers many a night wondering if he was coming home safe. The couple had nine children Susan, Kathryn, Jane, Mary Lou, Joan Theresa, Marian, Edward and Gerard.  Her husband, Jerry, worked as a full-time firefighter and also parked cars, painted houses, and wall papered homes while Lovey was full-time mother, cook, clothing maker, scheduler, nurse, house cleaner, and organizer. Whether it was a special holiday dress or a suit, Lovey made the bulk of the children’s clothing and taught each of them to sew and cook.
    Lovey was a member of a Brownie Mothers Club that would meet once a month to talk with other moms and occasionally go to a Broadway show. While Broadway people were new to most of her friends, a lot of them lived in the neighborhood Lovey had grown up in. One friend in particular who stands out in Lovey’s mind was Betty Furness. “They lived across the street from me and Betty’s father was a radio announcer,” reminisced Lovey. “Every now and then Betty would take us over to an apartment they had on Park Avenue. It is safe to say they had money and we didn’t. I remember being so impressed because we could take a bath and use as much hot water as we wanted. Such a luxury.” Betty went on to a career in movies and advertising. Lovey shared Betty was the famed Westinghouse lady who opened up the new refrigerators and ovens on television to entice the family to buy.
    With a mantra of never hiring anyone to do work for you, Jerry, Lovey and their family embraced a work ethic that translated into working as a family to set goals, keep the home running, and function as a family. The children were raised to help each other and learn to become independent. At the time, large community gatherings were few and the family spent time together popping corn and watching 8mm movies, playing board games, and playing street games. Whether it was getting nine children ready for church or spending time in the family garden, the family worked together and played together.
    In the 1960’s Jerry and Lovey first began to take the month of August to vacation in the Green Mountain State and fell in love with Lake Willoughby. While some of Jerry’s family had come to Vermont since the 1940’s and had discovered the Willoughby area, it was 1970 when Jerry and Lovey purchased a small fixer upper called Styles Cottages. The location would serve to be the gathering place for all the generations of Burke’s and the family’s annual getaway and place to play. “It was the loveliest place I had ever seen,” explained Lovey. “I chose Vermont and I told Jerry we were moving there.” They moved to the Newport area in 1973 and worked hard to make the lake property a viable place for the family to come and gather for generations to come. Retired from the NYC Fire Department, Jerry’s favorite getaway was going to the lake to work on the property. “He had a genuine affection, affinity and love for the place,” shared Lovey. “Even the last summer he was alive, we went to the camp as much as we could. Just a few months before he died he took out the old red boat we had and went around the whole lake by himself. He felt so at home there.”
    Married forty-three years when Jerry passed away, Lovey has had more time in the past years to use new technology to Face Time with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren all over the country. Besides reading, watching world politics and spending time in her beloved gardens, Lovey meets every Wednesday with her girlfriends – The 9:30 Ladies -- to have coffee and to chat about everything the world has going on. Lovey moved to Bristol fourteen years ago and resides near several of her children. Daughter Marian was on hand for the interview and shared that her mother had given them all a creative streak that runs deep. Each of her siblings is involved in some kind of craft or artistic process and brother Ed owns Rocky Dale Gardens where he took the existing yard and gardens and transformed them into his vision of a garden paradise.
    “Mom ran the house with a firm hand and we learned that as a family we all had to do what was expected of us. She gave us our faith in God, our love of creativity, flowers and a great work ethic.”
    When asked what she thought of our world situation at present Lovey responded with a firm, “Not much! With the world condition, hurricanes and Mr. Trump in the middle of all of his comings and goings, I am really not sure.” What she is certain about is that life still revolves around the same beliefs she was raised with. Lovey adored helping her dad garden, learning from him how to weave and braid the daffodil leaves and create beauty everywhere she lived.
    Roses, daffodils, climbing roses, and a rock garden adorned the small plot of land that the Burke family lived on. No matter how busy, Lovey made time to get into the dirt while making the home inside and out a place of family and love.
    When October 25th, 2018 rolls around and Lovey turns 100, there will be a lot of celebrating in the town of Bristol and at the beloved family camp on Lake Willoughby. Generations will Face Time from around the nation to speak to the woman who might be pint sized but whose heart knows no bounds. And it is Lovey’s heart that brings together generations of Burkes with the recipe for family of faith, mixing in love, multiplying by children and working together to grow, learn and appreciate the land and water. The Valley Voice salutes Lovey Burke and cannot wait to celebrate with her as she joins several others in the Bristol region who are now members of the Century Club.

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