In Memory Of Alice

Alice Marie (Cornelius) Burgess

by Joan (Nelson) Shreve

Alice Marie (Cornelius) Burgess passed away on Monday, April 15, 2019, in Spring Valley, California. She was born on May 25, 1924, in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, to parents Tilla (Monseth) and Martin Cornelius, joining an older sister Ruth. Her father had been born in Vikna, Nord-Trøndelag, Norway, and her mother was the daughter of immigrants from Nordfjordeid, Norway. While the family lived in Wilkinsburg, her father worked for the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company as an electrical engineer.

On October 5, 1924, Alice was baptized at the Calvary Evangelical Lutheran Church in Wilkinsburg. In one of those quirky coincidences that sometimes happen in life, Alice was baptized by Lutheran pastor Dr. Charles Foelsch, who turned out to be a first cousin of her future husband’s father, John Arthur Burgess.

When Alice was two years old, her father was transferred to the Chicago office of Westinghouse. The family moved to 314 North Kensington in La Grange, Illinois, where Alice spent most of her childhood. She attended the Ogden Avenue Elementary School and took private piano lessons from Miss Sylvia Conger. When she was nine years old, she played hymns on the piano for the Grace Lutheran Church Sunday School. Her passion for music would be life-long.

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In 1937 when Alice was thirteen years old, her father took a position with U.S. Steel, and the family moved to Gary, Indiana. After graduating from Gary’s Horace Mann High School in 1942, Alice joined her sister Ruth in attending St. Olaf College. (St. Olaf, a college founded in 1874 by a group of Norwegian-American immigrant pastors and farmers, is located in Northfield, Minnesota.) In 1946 Alice graduated from St. Olaf with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

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Following college she found employment with the Illinois Bell Telephone Company working in the Commercial Department. With her friendly and outgoing personality, Alice became the “face” of Illinois Bell, representing new products, services, and innovations to businesses.

Music remained central to her life. She sang in the St. Olaf Ladies’ Chorus while in college, sang in the Bethlehem Lutheran church choir in Gary, served as director and accompanist to the Bethlehem Lutheran Junior Choir, and mastered both the organ and piano. At an American Guild of Organists’ national convention, she met fellow musician Charles Edward Burgess. On June 29, 1963, Alice and Charles were married in Gary, Indiana, at Bethlehem Lutheran Church.

At first Charles and Alice made their home in Long Island, New York, where Charles was employed by St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church and Parish Day School, providing music instruction. In 1964 Alice and Charles moved to Tucson, Arizona. During their many years in Tucson, Charles served as organist-choirmaster at various Episcopal churches in the city.

Alice, of course, continued to sing and play piano, but she spent a great deal of time pursuing a new passion as well, genealogy. She researched and compiled information on both the Monseth and Cornelius sides of her family. In 1991 she completed her Cornelius Family Group Records project. Some of these family group records were typed, others were filled out by hand. Then in 1996 she completed a History of the Monseth Family. Life on Colfax Avenue North. These genealogical projects were no small achievements, considering Alice did all her work without the aid of computers.

In September 2005 Alice and Charles moved to San Diego to live in Grace Towers Senior Apartments to be near Charles’s brother James and other members of the Burgess family. Charles would play the organ and Alice the piano for church services held up in the “Sky Room” of Grace Tower. Charles passed away on April 5, 2013. Alice continued to live in the San Diego area until her death.

Alice’s Photo Book is a 23-page book created in honor of Alice’s 90th birthday on May 25, 2014–click on DOWNLOAD to see it.