Marion Frances Burdick Witt, R.N. "Fran"

being the Feast of John Henry Hobart.

Fran was born in St. Petersburg, Florida to Julia R. Burdick and Dr. Robert L. Burdick, United States Navy.

Her father’s naval career caused Fran to live and be schooled in a variety of places, but she attended high school and graduated from Friend’s Central

School in Philadelphia, PA. She then attended Alfred University where she was a sorority sister of Alpha Kappa Omicron and graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing. She was married by The Rev. Daniel A. Bennett to Robert E. Witt, Jr. on 27 December

1967 in Lyons, New York and is mother to three sons: Robert Edward III, Andrew James, and Scott Lewis.

Fran worked on the Surgical Floor and in the ICU of St. Joseph’s Hospital, Bangor, Maine for three years. She was Charge Nurse of the ICU in The Hospital,

Sydney, New York for six years. She worked briefly in the Cardiac Catheterization Lab at St. Luke’s Hospital in Utica, New York until she was appointed Charge

Nurse of the newly formed Special Procedures Unit of the Radiology Department at St. Luke’s. She organized and perfected the work of this unit for seventeen

years. When Fran moved to Morris, New York with her husband, she worked remotely as Coder for Special Procedures in the Billing Department at St. Luke’s

until her retirement in 2014.

Fran loved music. She sang in several musicals in high school and college; sang in the choir at St. Thomas Church in Rochester, New York, was briefly Organist at 8th Street Chapel in Fort Meade, Maryland; and was a chorister at St. John’s Church, Bangor, Maine for three years and Zion Church, Morris, New York for eighteen. For seventeen years Fran was a member of the choir and substitute organist at St. Margaret’s House in New Hartford, New York, and recently a member of the choir at St. Bartholomew’s Church in Mayfield, Ohio.

Fran was also clever with needle, yarn, and thread. She made clothes for her

sons, crocheted afghans for her family when they lived in frosty Upstate New York, and knitted stocking caps, mittens, and sweaters for her children and

grandchildren. Fran cross-stitched a wide variety of decorative pictures, hangings, and clerical vestments. She also made by hand a number of lovely gowns which she wore on formal nights at sea. Fran loved to travel by ship and by rail. She crossed the United States some five times by way of various Amtrak routes, road the Coastal Starlight train up the West Coast of the United States, and crossed Canada from Toronto to Vancouver by way of Viarail. Sailing on Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary 2, and Queen Victoria, Fran has cruised around the world twice, visited the Baltic Sea and the fjords of Norway, and circumnavigated South America.

Fran was an avid reader of mystery novels, and an expert crossword puzzler who made finishing the New York Times crossword a daily habit. She was skilled with computers and she programmed, among other things, an elaborate Access database that tracked the Episcopal Daily Office and Eucharistic Lectionary. She enjoyed “Jeopardy!,” and liked to watch murder mysteries such as “Bones” and “Monk.” She also liked watching birds at the porch feeder and listening to the wind chimes that hung there.

Fran is survived by her husband, The Rev. Robert E. Witt, Jr.; by her son Robert and his wife Ann and their children, Rachel and Collin; by her son Andrew

and his wife Gretchen and their children, Michaela and Ben; and by her son Scott and his children Jared and Morgyn.

A Requiem Mass will be held 11:00 am Saturday September 16 at St. Bartholomew Episcopal Church, 435 SOM Center Rd. Mayfield Village, OH 44143.

Online condolences www.diciccoandsonsfh.com