Bessie May Burnham (1942)

BURNHAM, DOUGLAS, HOLMES, COMBS, HUFFMAN, PASSMORE

Posted By: Pat Hochstetler (email)
Date: 9/26/2006 at 06:48:38

Winterset Madisonian - Wed., April 1, 1942

FORMER RESIDENT DIES IN CALIFORNIA

Mrs. Bessie Burnham Lived for Many Years in Truro Community

Mrs. Bessie M. Burnham, a native of Madison county, and a resident of the Truro community for many years, died March 10, at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Beulah Combs, in Roseville, Cal. She was 73 years of age.

Mrs. Burnham was the former May Douglas, daughter of James and Priscilla Holmes Douglas, and was born near Truro on April 8, 1868. She was reared in that community, and in 1888 was married to George C. Huffman. They were the parents of five daughters, three of whom preceded their mother in death. Mr. Huffman died in 1901.

A few years later she was married to Charles H. Burnham of Linden, helping to rear Mr. Burnham's four motherless children. In 1936 she went to Pomona, Cal., and made her home with her daughter, Mrs. Vera Passmore, for a year and a half before returning to Iowa for three years. In 1939 she returned to California to live with Mrs. Combs at Roseville.

Besides her two daughters, she is survived by nine grandchildren; two brothers, Owen Douglas of Dexter and J. S. Douglas of Kansas City, Mo., and a number of nieces and nephews in Madison county.

Funeral services were held March 13 in Pomona, in charge of the Rev. Frank M. Kepner, pastor of the First Baptist church. Burial was made in the Pomona cemetery.