HELEN DODSON BURGER IS 90

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I have found out from having the blog and receiving so many nice e-mail's
that if you are from Paradise, you all are related to one another.

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Quite a few months ago, Norma Hutchcraft Williams wrote me an e-mail and asked if I knew if Loa Burger Copp knew about the Paradise Blog, as she knew that her Mother would enjoy reading some of the stories and looking at the photo's. I proceeded to tell her that Loa was Millard's cousin and that her Mother was our Aunt and . . . . .

She wrote back and said that Aunt Helen was her Aunt too. Well, I already knew that most everyone else was related, so I proudly thought - we are too. So . . . . we are related to Larry Hoopes too?????

Helen Dodson Burger
Box 166
Auborn, KS 66402

Auburn woman nannied for builder of
Lindbergh's The Spirit of St. Louis

Published Tuesday, December 26, 2006
The Capital-Journal


AUBURN — Helen Burger learned early that life can take you places where you never thought you would go. Burger grew up on a farm in Russell County but found herself living inside a California mansion in her early 20s.

Burger, 88, of Auburn, was a nanny, cook and housekeeper for T. Claude Ryan, founder of Ryan Aeronautical Co. and builder of The Spirit of St. Louis, a single-engine plane flown nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean by Charles Lindbergh in 1927.
"It was a magnificent house near Point Loma," she said. "Mrs. Ryan and I would stand on the balcony and watch the boats (come into shore)."

Burger grew up in Paradise and graduated from Paradise High School in 1936, along with five or six other seniors. In February 1939, she married Lester Pfortmiller, a neighbor who had joined the Marine Corps and was stationed in San Diego.

After their marriage, she visited San Diego and knew if she was going to live near her new husband she would have to get a job. She saw an advertisement for a live-in nanny and went for an interview.

Helen Burger, 88, of Auburn, was a live-in nanny in California for T. Claude Ryan, who built The Spirit of St. Louis. Burger worked seven days a week for a wage of $1 per day. "I was hired and went to work the next day," she said. Perhaps on her side was Ryan's tie to Kansas. He grew up in Parsons. Burger, who lived in quarters near the mansion's kitchen and laundry room, worked seven days a week for $1 a day. Her duties: preparing meals, doing laundry, keeping the house clean and taking care of three young boys. "It was my job in the morning to change the baby's diaper and give him breakfast before anyone else came down," she said.

Burger's husband played trumpet in the U.S. Marine Corps Band and gave the children music lessons.

One day, the Ryans threw a big party for military personnel and their wives. Burger was required to don a maid's uniform, complete with hat, and serve the guests. "I didn't like that," she said.

Burger lived with the Ryans for about three years, from 1938 to 1940. Her husband finished his stint with the Marines but then joined the Navy after Pearl Harbor was attacked. He served on the USS Hornet and was killed when the ship was attacked by kamikazes, Japanese pilots who deliberately crashed their planes into U.S. ships. "He was buried at sea," she said.

By that time, Burger had three children. She and her children moved back to Kansas and lived with her parents on their farm. Her father suddenly died a short time later, leaving Burger and her mother to run the farming operation.
"I was a widow for six years," she said.

She married Harold Burger, a high school classmate who had a plumbing shop in Russell, in 1949. They had one child together.

Burger said she and her second husband moved to Topeka in the early 1980s and then to Auburn in about 2000. He died in March 2003.

Burger said she never imagined her life would take the turns it did.
"It shows how your life can change," she said, "from little Kansas farm girl to living with rich people."