Ethel M. Burgamy

Ethel Mae Frances (Dyer) Burgamy passed away peacefully in Tucker, Georgia on January 27, 2023 surrounded during the last months by her sons and devoted daughters-in-law. Her sons Wayne and Marshall will always be grateful for the care and commitment their brother Cal gave to their mother. He was there at her side when she passed. Ethel was just shy of her 96th birthday when she left us.

Mrs. Burgamy was born on March 14, 1927 in Macon, Georgia, the last of nine children. Her mother, Ruth (Middleton) Dyer Brown raised her and her siblings on a farm outside Macon, walking miles to town to work several jobs supporting the family as a single mother during The Great Depression. The Depression and World War II were to have defining influences on Ethel’s life.

She married in 1946 to Ravnel (Boots) V. Burgamy, a decorated and dashing Army officer who had just returned from the war in Europe. They remained together as a devoted and loving couple for 67 years until RV’s death in 2013.

The beautiful and vivacious Ethel (Eck) travelled the world; from postings in Germany, Switzerland and Japan, to many stateside assignments in South Carolina, Alabama, Washington, Alaska, and Georgia. Once, Ethel, at only 24 years old, her husband in Japan, took her toddler boys on train from Atlanta through Chicago to San Francisco, where she boarded a ship, both boisterous boys tethered by leather harnesses (something they never let her forget), and sailed through the Alaskan strait to Japan.

Ethel was a voracious reader. Unable to complete her formal education because of the need to help support her family during The Depression, she enjoyed works as diverse as Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book and Carson McCuller’s The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, to Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life, and Randall Lolly’s Journey with Me, as well as many weekly publications to include Reader’s Digest, Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, The Week, and, of course, first and foremost, The King James version of The Bible, which she read daily. She was a devoted Southern Baptist, baptized with her boys in Columbia, South Carolina.

Her sons remember her as a devoted mother, a questionable though committed cook, a lover of dogs (though fearful of cats), an assiduous back-seat driver, a CB radio operator extraordinaire (especially on road trips with fellow CBers Uncle Cal and Aunt Fay Burgamy), a fan of country music (especially Loretta Lynn), an adorer of Perry Como (she and her husband had an on-going joke that Perry was her boyfriend and Doris Day was his girlfriend), and of course the singing rage Patti Page, she was a feeder of multi-varied birds (especially hummingbirds, her favorite), an affectionate devotee to her Macon, Georgia family (who called her Sis or Aunt Sista), a good dancer, and, often, to the chagrin of her three boys, a romantic public kisser of their father.

Ethel loved her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Cory, the “daughter” she never had spent most childhood summers with her “Big Big.” Ethel adored her grandson Ben, a young man she was so proud of later as a “Doolie”, the nickname for a first year cadet at the Air Force Academy. She was thrilled to spoil her two great grandchildren Andres and Camila.

In addition to her grandchildren and great grant children, Ethel is survived by her three sons, B. Wayne Burgamy (Donna), Calvin E. Burgamy (Tina) and R. Marshall Burgamy (Patti).

Visitation will be held at Striffler-Hamby Mortuary in Columbus, Georgia at 11am on Wednesday, February 1, 2023 with a graveside service to follow at Park Hill Cemetery at 12:30pm. Donations in her honor may be made to the Audubon Society or The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Fund.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.shcolumbus.com for the Burgamy family.