Anne is the second daughter, the fifth child, of Jack and Anna Wright. Like all her siblings, she was born at home with the assistance of Mrs. Elko, a skilled and widely used midwife.
Sister Mary, a few years older, remembers babysitting her little sister. Two of her girlfriends also had little sisters, so the two sets of friends spent a lot of time together. That was life in Larksville – a town filled with friends and family.
Sister Phyllis shares some memories:
“Anne and I were four years apart. Mother had a hard time keeping us apart when it came to the clothes closet. When I graduated high school with the same Commercial Course as she, I joined her at Lyons & Carnahan, book publishers in town. There, we were secretaries, traveling together each day. Passing by Woolworth’s, Anne always got the glances from the King’s College guys, including husband-to-be Bill Burke, handsome basketball star (after playing in college, he played for the Wilkes-Barre Barons, a minor league basketball team at the time). I so admired her tall, thin stature and her red hair. Anne and Bill came to Connecticut to be Godparents to Carolyn, and I appreciated that. Anne had her first babies in the valley and I will never forget her trek to the hospital on a snowy night to deliver Billy . I was the driver and when St. Anthony’s Hill became too much for my skill, we resorted to Joe Sheridan at the Hose House to come to our aid. After that, Anne had her babies in New Jersey.”
Anne and Bill spent their married life in Somerville, New Jersey, where they raised their four children – Paul, Bill, Jennifer and Neil. She was employed at Johnson and Johnson, starting as a packaging technician and working her way up to the Microbiology Department where testing was done. Bill was a teacher in the Watchung Borough school system and also spent time as a Superintendent in the same school system.
Anne was a beautiful person inside and out, a super stylish dresser, who loved spending time with her sisters and all her relatives in the Wright family. She loved to travel, loved the theater, playing mahjong and so much more – but nothing compared to the love she had for her children. She left us much too soon and she will always be missed.
