Steady hand, tough lady: Florence at 100
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About to celebrate her 100th birthday, Florence Burgess displays some of her steady hand pen work with coloring books while surrounded by her crochet works. - Alan Sloan
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Florence Burgess celebrating her 90th birthday with Bubby the cat. - Alan Sloan
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Florence with husband, Ken, in 1959. - Alan Sloan
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Florence with her little brother, Carl Spitznogle, as children - Alan Sloan
Just a few days away from her 100th birthday (Monday, Sept. 11), Florence Burgess still has a steady hand that would rival a noted surgeon, and she proves it regularly while enjoying a hobby her daughter, Susan Burgess DeMarco, got her interested in a few years ago: coloring books, having finished a few dozen books in recent years.
With her daughter holding up several pages of Florence’s flower, animal and patterned works in her books — not a single color outside a line — “She’s followed the markings with a steady hand,” DeMarco said.
Having to give up her previous hobby of crocheting a few years ago — Florence crotcheted DeMarco‘s wedding dress and matching vest — “I started her on this about four years ago,” the daughter said from their Fox Run subdivision home. “She never had really colored as a child or anything.”
“Well, it helps me to pass the time away,” Florence said. “I would probably go nuts if I didn’t have something.”
About crocheting, “The best thing that I crocheted was her wedding dress,” Florence said.
“I know she made some clothes for my other sisters when they were smaller, but she literally made most of my clothes from the time I was in junior high through law school,” said DeMarco. a retired attorney, “which allowed me to have a lot more stuff to wear because we didn’t always have a lot of money and it allowed me to have things that were different than other people’s things. She made suits, simple dresses, you name it, she could do it.
“She’s such a strong and loving person.”
About longevity in the family, “I don’t recall how many generations back, but I found an uncle (of her’s) that would have been alive during the Civil War who lived to be 106 years old,” DeMarco said.
Thinking back to her childhood in Blacksville, Pennsylvania near its border with West Virginia as Florence Spitznogle, she recalled “my grandmother (Alice Wilson) more than anything else. My grandmother raised me.”
Living with Alice until age 14, “She passed away when I was 17,” Florence said.
Though a loving person, “She was very strict,” the soon-to-be 100-year young woman said. “Oh, but that was a good thing.”
While saying “I never got much for Christmas,” Florence added, “We didn’t have it all that bad. ... (Alice) got a government pension from a son that died in World War I.”
About her marriage to Ken Burgess Sr., “On my wedding day it snowed, the 19th of April (1942),” Florence said. “My husband was living in West Virginia. I was living in Pennsylvania, and we got married in Maryland. We didn’t have a honeymoon.”
Raising four children — with DeMarco the only one still living — Florence has eight grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
With Florence helping to lay blocks to build the family home in southern Pennsylvania, “We had a farm and a sawmill. They cut down the trees, made the lumber and built the house from scratch,” DeMarco said. “She was plowing a field with a hand plow the day one of my siblings was born.”
“You’ve seen these garden plows that you push,” Florence said. “You pushed it (no mule or farm animal).”
Also known as a talented cook and craftsperson, “I worked in a dairy store for 10 years … Isela’s Dairy (stores), the best ice cream,” Florence said about this store in Niles, Ohio, in the northeastern part of the state where the family relocated “just a little before I was born,” the daughter said.
“Well, when I started I was a clerk, then I managed the dairy store,” Florence said. “I wish I had a quarter for every ice cream cone I made and every milk shake.
“I enjoyed it.”
After that, “I worked in a grocery store in the meat department ... 15 years,” she said.
