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Death of Mary (Burlingame) Burson

 

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My father is Lloyd Burson...Lloyd is the twin brother Floyd of this story, This front page article is from East Palestine, Ohio in 1945....I still have the original article my father gave me as a teenager. I will type is exactly the way it was written in the newspaper. - donated by Patricia Carney

Farmers Clear Road to Reach Snowbound Twins, Mother's Body
Special To the Review

East Palestine, Jan. 27-- Neighboring farmers helped bring Ralph Burson, his motherless brood of eight and his wife's body back to "civilization" Friday after the woman's death following the delivery of twins in their snowbound farm home four miles northwest of here.

Robert Crane, who resides about a mile from the Burson home which is on the Thompson Rodgers farm in Unity township, attacked the impassable road with his tractor.

John Propt, Walter Fitzsimmons and Mr. Crane succeeded in clearing a path on the main road to the intersection of a narrow snowdrifted lane leading to the home of the widowed coal washer and the day-old twin sons who have not been named.

The mother, the former Mary Margaret Burlingame, 35, of Negley died Thursday afternoon about 5:30 shortly after Dr. A.J. Atchison and Registered Nurse Zora Harmon of East Palestine delivered her of the boys about 22 minutes apart.

The physician and nurse were taken on Mr. Crane's tractor as far as it could go, then they set out on foot to reach the stranded family. They had to make the trip again Thursday night after the father conveyed word that his wife had suffered a relapse. On the return trip they found the woman had died of a blood clot.

But the twins survived the ordeal without harm and rescuers--including four farm women wearing hipboots and plenty of clothing against the cold--bundled the babies in a Red Cross hamper, covered with blankets and warmed by hot water bottles, and carried their tiny charges over hills and along fence lines where the snow was less deep to reach an auto that took them to the home of an aunt, Mrs. Fred T. Burson, of Negley.

The younger children, John, 18 months; James, 4, and Lenore, 7, were carried in strong arms through the drifts that were waist deep in places.

The youngsters , Erwin, 14; Howard, 12, and Ellen, 10, with their dad, were able to walk to the road. All were taken to the home of their grandmother, Mrs. Sara Burson, of Negley.

Farmers using a horse hitched to a flat-bottomed snow scow transported the woman's body across fields and sidelanes to the waiting hearse of the Van Dyke funeral home.

The hearse had been stalled overnight in a drift after setting out at 7 o.m. Thursday to get the body.

The Red Cross, fearing that the family was without food and that there was no clothing for the infants, had rounded up a supply of both, but word was received that the home had a small but depleted stock of groceries, what the aunt, who was with her sister through the tragedy, had brought some articles of clothing--expecting one baby, however.

So the quantity of food and extra infant's apparel were shared with the aunt and grandmother, with whom the youngsters will remain until Mr. Burson reestablishes a home.

The family had been virtually isolated for two weeks, but Mr. Burson could struggle into town anytime that it was necessary, although it took hours.

They depended on heat from a coal stove in the kitchen and a coal-burning chicken brooder that was set up in the bedroom for the expectant mother.

Besides the husband, who is employed at the Negley coal washing plant, and the eight children, Mrs. Burson is survived by four sisters, Mrs. Fred Burson and Mrs Charles Jones of Negley, Mrs. Andrew Van Fossan of East Palestine, and Mrs. Stella Conkle of ? (can't read name of city--the paper was folded on this line), And three brothers, Edward Burlingame and Lee Burlingame of East Liverpool, and Robert Burlingame of Pico, Calif.

The victim, who was the daughter of the late Joseph and Sara Thompson Burlingame, was born July 20, 1909 in Middleton township. She was married on Feb. 13, 1929 to Ralph Burson, whose brother, Fred Burson, married her sister.

Mr. and Mrs. Fred Burson Burson plan to adopt the twins.

Services will be held Sunday afternoon at 2 at the Van Dyke funeral home by Rev. Robert Dyke of the Christian church of Enon Valley. Interment will be in Clarkson cemetery.