Carole Arlene Debrick Burger

Carole Arlene Debrick Burger

Carole Arlene Debrick Burger

GUILDERLAND — Carol Arlene Debrick Burger “had the heart of a teacher,” said her son, G. Daniel Burger Jr.

“She liked explaining things,” he said. His father, G. Daniel Burger Sr. added, “She liked to be helpful.”

She died peacefully on Sunday, Jan. 1, 2017, in the arms of her husband of 59 years. She was 81.

Mrs. Burger was a teenager when she met the man who would become her husband; he was the older brother of one of her best friends. He was 17 and home on leave from the Air Force. She invited him to her 16th birthday party, and they shared a kiss during a game of Post Office.

She invited him only because she knew he was in the service and would be going away again soon, Mr. Burger said.

“She didn’t want to get serious with anybody. She knew she was going to college,” he said.

Nevertheless, “She fell in love with me, and I couldn’t believe it,” her husband recalled. “And I fell in love with her.”

She graduated as valedictorian of her Watervliet High School class, her family said.

They dated while she went to the College of Saint Rose for a bachelor’s degree, and he remained in the service before starting work at Ford Motor Company’s Green Island plant, her husband said.

They made a pact, Mr. Burger said. “She would get her bachelor’s degree, then we would get married, and then she would go right back to Saint Rose and get her master’s.”

And that’s what they did. They put off marrying until 1957, and, afterward, Mrs. Burger went on to graduate school at Saint Rose, graduating summa cum laude with a certification in high-school teaching.

The couple moved to Guilderland Center in 1963, where they would stay for the rest of her life.

Mrs. Burger taught English for two years at Berlin High School, but wanted to be at home with their children when she and her husband started a family. She was a stay-at-home mother until her youngest child was in the sixth grade, said her daughter, Christine McCaffery.

Of those early years, her daughter said, “She was a real homemaker. I would be coloring, and she would be ironing. She always had meals for us, and she would pack the lunches. When we were sick and home from school, she’d take care of us.”

Her mother was “always here when I got home,” her daughter said, “and then, when I was in middle school, she’d give me a ride home if I wanted it.”

“She liked being in control,” her daughter mused, referring to the way that her mother loved both running a classroom and a home.

Mrs. Burger later got another master’s degree, in special education, and became certified to teach kindergarten through eighth-grade special-education students. Once her children were older, Mrs. Burger worked for more than 40 years as a substitute teacher of English, Spanish, French, and special education.

She was working on her doctorate all her life, Mr. Burger said. “She just never got it done.”

She was a teacher to the end, her daughter said, donating her body to science so that students she would never know could learn from her.

She also worked for decades at Gate 3 at the Altamont Fair, and also worked at St. Lucy’s Church’s fair restaurant, her husband said. The couple was active for years in St. Lucy’s Couples Club, helping to organize church events.

They were very active for a long time, too, in supporting the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Upstate New York / Vermont chapter, Mrs. McCaffery said.

For years, Mrs. Burger was a poll worker in Guilderland Center on Election Day, her husband said. “She was really happy she worked this last election,” Mr. Burger said.

The couple square-danced on a team called the Electric City Twirlers.

Mrs. Burger was a 4-H leader, too: “She started a club for us, and then we folded it into a larger club, the Green Giants,” recalled her daughter. Mrs. Burger became a leader of that larger 4-H club, too.

The couple loved the outdoors and went camping often, her husband said. “One of our favorite things was traveling around the country, first with a tent, then in a trailer, and then an RV,” said Mr. Burger. They traveled across the country, twice. And they both loved to drive motorcycles, Mr. Burger said, recalling, “We loved our outdoors, we sure did.”

At home, too, Mrs. Burger was always “more than willing to have a picnic outside,” as long as the kids would build a fire in the outdoor fireplace, said daughter Christine McCaffery.

She enjoyed reading, her family said, especially the Bible and inspirational stories.

“She was right by my side, and I was right by her side, for well over 65 years,” her husband said.

“She was a caring person,” Christine McCaffery said.

“She was sweet,” said her son. “I think about her all the time,” he added.

Whenever they went to a wedding, they would tell the couple, her husband recalled, “‘If your marriage is half as good as ours, you’ll always be together.’”

****

Carole Arlene Debrick Burger is survived by her husband of 59 years, G. Daniel Burger Sr., and two children, G. Daniel Burger Jr. and his wife, Susan Goodemote-Burger, of East Berne; and Christine Mae Veronica Burger McCaffrey and her husband, Brian, of Grand View, Wisconsin.

She is also survived by her two brothers, Richard P. Debrick of Watervliet; and Frank Debrick of Bend, Oregon.

She is survived, too, by four grandchildren: Christine Marie Burger of Alexandria, Virginia; Michael Anthony Raphael and his wife, Chandra, of Ashland, Wisconsin; David Goodemote of East Berne; and Randall De Los Bates of Albany.

She is also survived by sisters-in-law Joan Burger Wald and her husband, Edward, of Houston, Texas; and Lydia Burger of Castleton-on-the-Hudson; her son’s first wife, Joan Little-Burger; and many nieces and nephews.

Daughter Arlene Burger died before her, from leukemia at age 10. Mary Regan, a daughter whom the couple adopted at age 10 when her parents died, also died before her, as did Mrs. Burger’s parents, Evelyn and Francis Debrick. A sister-in-law, Annamarie Burger of Pomona, California, died recently, after Mrs. Burger’s death.

A memorial service and celebration of her life will be held on Saturday, March 25 —  the day after what would have been her 82nd birthday — at 2 p.m. at St. Lucy / St. Bernadette’s Church at 122 Grand St. in Altamont.

Her family expresses its gratitude to the doctors and nurses at St. Peter’s, and particularly the staff of the hospital’s Hospice Inn, for their loving and compassionate care.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Upstate New York / Vermont Chapter, 5 Computer Dr. West, Suite 100, Albany 12205.

— Elizabeth Floyd Mair

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