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Note: N19 Pauline was born in Quezaltenango, Guatemala, on August 10, 1914, the second child of pioneer Presbyterian missionaries Paul and Dora (McLaughlin) Burgess. Here she spent her school years, walking twice each day up a steep hill to La Patria School, then back again.
When she was 12, her parents took their five children on a year-long trip which included Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Trinidad, an Atlantic crossing, then Germany, Austria, the Swiss Alps, Italy, a Mediterranean crossing, then Egypt, Israel, Greece, Rome, France, New York, and back to Guatemala. Along the way the family took in concerts, museums, and visits to many widely scattered friends and relatives.
Returning to Guatemala, Pauline finished La Patria's normal school program in three years instead of the usual four, graduating with a teaching credential. In the spring of 1931 she came to Colorado and took one semester of high school classes in order to adjust to taking notes in English and taking written instead of oral exams.
After getting her B. A. from Park College in 1935 and attending Biblical Seminary in New York for a year, she applied to the Presbyterian Board and was sent to Guatemala as a short-termer to teach at her alma mater, La Patria.
Boarding a ship for Puerto Barrios, she arrived in Quezaltenango in time to celebrate her parents' silver wedding anniversary and her sister Carrie's birthday.
It was at the birthday party that she met Ed Sywulka, a young missionary to the Mam Indians. Soon a steady stream of "Pauline epistles" began arriving at the Burgess home, and on February 5, 1938, in Quezaltenango's Bethel Church, Ed and Pauline were married by her father. Some 500 guests feasted on wedding tamales that evening.
That was how Pauline joined CAM, Ed's mission. No candidate school, no lengthy interviews, no long months of raising support. She simply married into the mission.
God blessed their home with seven children, six of whom grew up and married. Three moved to California, one to Virginia, and two followed their parents' footsteps as missionaries in Guatemala.
For sixty-six years, along with her husband, Pauline served the Mam Indians. While Ed traveled, she often stayed home to care for the children, lead women's meetings, and teach reading and music classes. Among printed materials she has authored or edited are inspirational monthly magazines in Mam and Spanish, Mam primers, Mam Sunday school lessons, a Mam hymnal, a Mam Bible story book, and a history of the CAM work in Huehuetenango.
Moving to Kingsburg California in early 2004 gave her more time for literary projects, including a Mam translation of Aesop's Fables and a Spanish book on Christian stewardship.
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