Mary Anna Finke Burkart            April 20, 2023

Mary Anna Finke Burkart went to be with her Lord on April 20, 2023. She was 97. She was preceded in death by her husband of 62 years, Leonard Francis Burkart.

Mary was born Nov. 13, 1925, in Menomonie, Wisconsin, to Olive Rudesill Finke and Wilbur William Finke. She grew up on the family farm and would later write that her childhood was mostly very happy, with memories of picking spring flowers in the woods, harvesting vegetables with her mother in their garden, skiing to the one room schoolhouse she attended, and watching her father make maple syrup in early spring. After high school, she earned a two-year teaching certificate and taught in a one-room schoolhouse for one year before becoming a nanny in nearby St. Paul, Minnesota, for a wealthy family with whom she would move to Seattle. 

In Seattle she was introduced to some young people who showed her that her God loved her in a real way and she could have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. She accepted Christ as her Lord and followed him the rest of her days. She worked for time for the Port Authority in Seattle and earned money to attend the University of Washington. It was there that she met Leonard Burkart, a returning World War II veteran. They graduated from the university and were married in August 1949. After working for a rural mission group in Washington, where their first child was born, they moved to Klamath Falls, Oregon, for Leonard’s work. Three more children were born there, one of whom, Sara Marie, survived only one week.

Leonard then earned a doctorate in chemistry at the University of Minnesota, and Mary took graduate courses at night in library science. Later, she would say that one of her only regrets was that she was unable to complete the degree before the family moved to Nacogdoches, Texas, where Leonard took a teaching job at Stephen F. Austin State University. Mary, who loved cooking, and Leonard frequently hosted university students and missionaries in their home, and she also taught Sunday school. For as long as she was able, she devoted time each day to praying for her children and grandchildren.

Leonard and Mary moved to Loveland, Colorado, after he retired from teaching. After he died, she moved to Pennsylvania to be closer to her son Philip and lived there until 2017, when she came to Mountain View Nursing Home.

She also was proceeded in death by her parents; brother James Mathias Finke; and sister Harriette Merrilla Finke Halverson. She is survived by her brother Frank “Fritz” Frederick Finke of Spring Valley, Wisconsin; daughters Elizabeth Anna Johnson of Boulder, Colorado, and Mary Lenora Brasher of Falls Church, Virginia; son Philip Leonard Burkart of Port Allegany, Pennsylvania; and seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.