Gloria V. Burkinshaw

NORFOLK -- Gloria Virginia Burkinshaw, one of 3-sisters and two brothers born February 18, 1929, about the same time The Great Depression nearly devastated her farm family Gurdon and Dollie Burkinshaw. The family struggled to make ends met on their small farm along the Keya Paha River near Mills, Nebraska. They were poor like all the neighbors but her parents milked 16 cows most of the time that provided them with a cream check every week. Her father often raised several hundred feeder pigs, some draft horses, and a small herd of registered Hereford stock cows. They also raised big gardens along with lots of chickens. Gloria and her four siblings walked 2 miles to a rural one room school where she received a good basic education. Gloria later graduated from Long Pine, Nebraska high school as Valedictorian of her class. By the time she finished high school in 1946 her father had died of cancer, leaving her mother to raise a family of five the best way she could. Gloria was only 18 when she began teaching rural students. She was determined to earn enough to go to college. When Gloria received her teaching certificate in 1954 she only had 25 dollars to her name, a job teaching in Pueblo, Colorado, and a bus ticket in her hand. Gloria received $3,200 teaching the second grade that year but through determination, diligence, and being thrifty she was able to get her Master’s Degree, a beautiful townhouse at the foothills of Pueblo, Colorado, and all those things she dreamed of doing before she died. After Gloria retired she was very active in the First Church of the Nazarene of Pueblo often traveling to Africa and other foreign countries doing missionary work helping build churches for the poor. In December 2011, Gloria had a stroke and wound up in a Pueblo hospital unable to talk or write her name. Gloria never married and lived alone in Pueblo for 58 years, surrounded by her church and teacher friends. The “stroke ruined my life,” Gloria later said after recovering. Her family brought her to Norfolk, Nebraska to be near her brother and sisters. Gloria lived in The Meadows, an assisted living facility until she had another stroke which took her life Tuesday March 3, 2015. Gloria is survived by two brothers, Kenneth and wife Olean of St Paul, Minnesota, Stanley and wife Jeannie of Long Pine, Nebraska, and two sisters Dessly Burkinshaw of Norfolk, Hazel and husband Webb McNally of Norfolk, Nebraska. Private family services will be at a later date. Stonacek Funeral Chapel is in charge of the arrangements. Condolences may be expressed to the family on-line at www.stonacekfuneralchapel.com.

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Gloria V. Burkinshaw

February 18, 1929 - March 3, 2015