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Note: N27 ANNA MARY HERTZ, oldest child of Ludwig Ferdinand Hertz and Mary Henderson, was born in New York City 20 Dec. 1866. Her childhood included voyages to Germany (where she got to know her grandmother Anna Heine Hertz). Her father was rarely at home, as he traveled from place to place trying to regain his failing health. Her mother wrote to her father every day while he was gone.
When Anna was quite small, a negligent maid let her play in icy water. The resulting ear infection left her deaf for life. A letter also mentions that she had malaria as a small child in Annapolis while visiting her Henderson grandparents. And from childhood, she was always very nearsighted.
Her education was supplemented by a wide reading of history and the classics; she was truly a self-educated woman. As a child, she also loved to sew, and tells of sewing doll clothes for each of her sister Sue's 38 dolls, of playing school, church, and weddings, and of pretending that piles of boxes full of books were mountains.
As a small girl, Anna lost an infant brother and then an infant sister. When not quite 14, she lost her father, and two months later, her five-year-old sister.
Anna's widowed mother was well off financially, thanks to the large life insurance policies which Ludwig Ferdinand's uncles, Armand and Michel Heine, had taken out on their ailing nephew. With her three remaining daughters, Anna's mother moved to Clifton Springs in up-state New York.
Here Anna met Charles Burgess, a former missionary to Turkey, who was working as a YMCA secretary. Family tradition has it that Mary Henderson at first opposed the match. But she later consented and signed as a witness at the marriage ceremony in Clifton Springs NY, 20 Feb. 1885. The cake was cut with the engraved knife used by Anna's parents at their wedding 19 years before. Anna's uncle Alfred Hertz sent silver spoons, but there were few other presents. Anna's sister Sue, in her memoirs, writes: "While I was in Washington, Anna had become engaged to marry a young clergyman. She was to have a home wedding in February, but the doctor thought it unwise for me to return home...before warm weather and so Anna was quietly married and I was glad deep down in my heart to be away, for it was hard to act as I should and behave properly to anyone who was taking away my darling sister."
Charles Burgess was soon ordained a Congregational minister. Anna followed him from church to church and city to city as he moved west in search of health. When he died in Canon City, CO, in 1895, she settled down here to raise her four children.
Making ends meet as a widow was not easy, even with help from her mother, who insisted on keeping her own life insurance money intact as to principal and live only on the interest. But through her penny pinching and her children "working their way through," the first three of Anna's children, all high school salutatorians, were able to graduate from Colorado College.
About 1908 Anna was elected to the local school board as secretary, a position she held over 20 years. This involved much record keeping, census taking, etc. When she was finally replaced, she wondered how she would manage without the $90 monthly salary, but found that as she trusted God, her needs were met. Although she never had money to spare, she had good taste, and when she bought things, they were beautiful and of fine quality.
Having united with New York's Classen Ave. Presbyterian Church as a child, Anna remained faithful and active in the First Presbyterian Church of Canon City all her long years there, teaching Sunday school giving mission talks, and serving on church committees. For a time, in the 1920's, she was relieved of her Sunday school class because some ultra conservatives in the church felt she was too broadminded. Instead of leaving the church in a huff, as some might have done, she remained loyal and in the end, the controversy blew over. She was also active in women's groups, was a loyal patron of the town library, and did a great deal of entertaining of friends, family, and visiting ministers.
Her letters reveal a strong and personal; faith in God and Christ, as well as an inborn cheerfulness and a sense of humor which brought her through many hard times triumphantly. Her letters also show that she deeply loved and constantly prayed for each member of her family.
For over 40 years, she wrote weekly to her son Paul Burgess. Besides family and church news, the letters include well considered and informed political opinions. (She couldn't stand Roosevelt of the Democrats, and was very strong on prohibition and morality.) There was also always a paragraph or two of thought provoking comments about books or articles, both religious and secular, that she had read that week. She was able to counter the anti Christian ideas she found in her reading with unusual brilliance and wit.
She was devoted to her grandchildren. When Paul Burgess sailed to Guatemala with his wife Dora and baby Carrie, Anna could not bring herself to wash the tiny hand prints off her mirrors. She missed long discussions with Paul, and wrote: "I wish you were here to tease me about my inborn conservativism." She stated that she had no one else with whom she could adequately discuss politics and theology. She spoke English and German, and then she also taught herself to read Spanish, so she could read her son's books. Although she was never able to visit him in Guatemala, she wrote: "I do not think it makes much difference whether you are in Guatemala or in Canon City. We know each other's hearts and if radio can bring us a voice from ten thousand miles, love can surely bridge any distance and that is true whether we are both on this earth or whether one has gone to the heavenly mansions. Whether here or there we are with God and underneath are the everlasting arms." (From a May 7, 1934 letter).
When Anna celebrated her 73rd birthday in 1939, she had just become a first time great grandmother. She also suffered from angina and was deeply disturbed about Hitler's activities. As usual, her son wrote her a birthday poem, and we quote a few stanzas:
We need not prate in maudlin phrase
Extolling home and mother
As though all virtue dwelt in them
Alone, and in no other.
But if there be a day when one
May thank and praise another,
That day may seem of right to be
The birthday of one's mother.
You have lived and loved and labored
And we children have the gain,
And our flesh and blood and spirit
Came with your travail and pain.
Yea, the branches and the tendrils
Know the limb on which they stand,
And the eddies of the current
Play in whirlpools o'er the sand.
And the children's children's children
Listen awestruck as they hear
Great-grandmothers tell them stories
They were not the first to hear.
We are no Pantheists, we Christians,
God is not the world, and so
There are always Good and Evil,
Love and Hate to see and know.
But the morning stars do praise Him,
Sun and Moon His honor sing,
And the first fruits of creation
Tribute to His glory bring.
So, though there be a word "angina"
And Hitler heils more than he should,
Life is not just a tragic Fate;
God made it and we find it GOOD.
She died in Canon City at age 80, after a broken hip had caused her a long stay at St. Thomas More Hospital. She was survived by four children, seven grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. Her first cousin, Rev. Rudolf Hertz, officiated at the funeral. Along with her three States-side children, her grandchildren Carrie Burgess Whiteside, Charlotte Duncan, and William Drake attended the service. Burial was in the Pioneeer Greenwood Cemetery of Canon City: Lot 1, Block 1, beside her husband and her sister Olga.
Anna Hertz Burgess was a remarkable woman, brave, cheerful, with a wonderful chuckle and a sense of humor, strong courage in the face of difficulty, a love of reading and of history, a photographic memory, strong opinions, deep love, and ideas that were far ahead of her time. She was no doubt the greatest single influence in the life of her missionary son, Paul Burgess.
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