Sunday, April 9, 2017 at 2:00 am (Updated: April 9, 2:00 am)
Coleen Burgess will be remembered for the simple pleasures she enjoyed and bestowed.She liked to drink coffee with her daughter-in-law every morning, sitting in her recliner, a Chihuahua balanced on each leg – Splash and Dixie.
Saturday mornings were for “yard-sale-in’.” And any day was for family and friends around the table. She was a fabulous cook, and every meal seemed to have at least three courses.
“We did everything together,” Tammy Burgess said Friday, unable to hold back tears as she talked about her mother-in-law and next-door neighbor. “She said I was the daughter she never had.”
Coleen Burgess, 66, died about 5 p.m. Thursday. A 100-foot-tall oak, uprooted by a storm, crashed through her home alongside Pageland Highway in the close-knit Buford community.
At least 16 first responders worked for three hours at the scene, cutting away large parts of the tree but knowing they could not save her. Her precious Splash and Dixie emerged unhurt about 7:30.
The rescue workers fell silent when Burgess was brought out to a coroner’s van. After everything was done, they huddled up and prayed for the family.
Someone gave Tammy Burgess her mother-in-law’s Bible after finding it in the yard.
“She loved to read her Bible,” Burgess said.
By 10 a.m. Friday, friends and family had begun returning to remove what remained of the massive tree that split the home in half. Some came with chainsaws. Others came to pray.
“She would not want us to be sad,” Tammy Burgess said. “She would want us to keep on.”
Burgess took a few minutes to talk about her mother-in-law as she stood in her own yard, which is next door to her in-laws’. It was hard to tell where one yard ended and the other began.
Coleen and her husband, Jim, moved to Buford from Glens Falls, N.Y., three decades ago, bringing three boys to raise.
They had two sons together, James Jr. and Kevin. Coleen had a son, Bernie Durkee, from a previous marriage who was a couple of years older than James Jr.
Coleen Burgess retired a year ago from her job as a certified nursing assistant at Carolinas Medical Center-Union to take care of Jim, 73, who had begun to have health problems. She loved her job, but wanted to spend as much time as possible with Jim while he was still having more good days than bad, Tammy Burgess said.
They bought a camper last year and had already enjoyed several trips to Lake Wateree and Andrew Jackson State Park. They were planning another trip for June.
Tammy and Coleen worked together at Kmart before it closed. Tammy got a job at Family Dollar, and Coleen got her CNA training and went to work at the hospital.
Coleen always had plans for making things better, whether it was her home or life for her family. She had just bought a special sewing machine to make curtains for her living room. She had plans to paint the house and had recently put down new wood floors after years of disliking her green carpet.
She was so excited to have those new floors, her daughter-in-law said. “She would laugh and say, ‘no more green carpet!’”
In the summer, she gardened and bought fresh vegetables from the farmer’s market to preserve for the winter. The kids loved eating at Grandma’s. Thanksgiving was always a huge feast, with lots of leftovers.
“The big thing around here was her turkey soup she made from leftovers two days later,” Tammy Burgess said.
She stood on her back porch Friday morning and looked down at a clear glass hummingbird mounted on a stick that was stuck in the ground next to her doorstep. Beside it was a glass cross. They were solar powered and lit up at night. Coleen loved watching them glow as it got dark each evening.
Colleen gave Tammy the hummingbird last Christmas. Tammy gave Coleen the cross for her birthday on March 21.
Friday morning the family was waiting for James Jr. to return with Bernie from the airport so they could make the final arrangements.
Coleen Burgess wanted to be buried next to her father in New York, so the three sons will make that trip together with their mother’s ashes after her funeral here.
Tammy and Kevin have two sons, Patrick, 17, and Noah, 10. They will be making room in tight quarters for her father-in-law since the tree destroyed his home.
Jim Burgess walked by wearing a cowboy hat and steadying himself with a cane as Tammy talked about her mother-in-law.
“Hey Pop, you OK?” she said. “You’re moving a little slow this morning.”
“I’m running out of gas,” he said.
As he walked past, she said loud enough for him to hear, “We ain’t got much, but whatever we got is his.”
Follow Reporter Mandy Catoe on Twitter @MandyCatoeTLN or contact her at (803) 283-1152.
https://www.gofundme.com/burgess-family-tree-removal
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