Mary Catherine Burger

Mary Catherine Burger, a resident of Missouri City, Texas from 1971 to 2021, passed away peacefully on July 9th, 2025 at her home in Cypress, Texas surrounded by her children. She was born on January 10th, 1928 in Chariton, Iowa, the second child of her parents Bernard (Barney) and Anna Offenburger, and she was educated through high school by the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Mary was fun and had a sense of adventure. At age 17 she began taking flying lessons, and at 18 she soloed in a Piper Cub. One time she flew to 12,000 feet, far higher than she was planning, but she enjoyed it! At age 78 she joined her two sons and a friend for a skydive, figuring if George H.W. Bush could do it, she could too!

She went to secretarial school and learned to take shorthand and type like the wind. She credited her speed to having taken Latin, which gave her a large vocabulary, and she got a job as a stenographer with the FBI.

The 1947 Texas City Explosion Disaster brought Mary to Texas when the FBI opened offices here to investigate. It was in Dallas that she met her husband, Frank, a Navy veteran of World War II who had served in the South Pacific and had participated in the D-Day landing at Omaha Beach, and who asked her out on a bowling date after talking with her at church.

Frank and Mary had three children, Lucy, Frank, and Paul, and the family lived in Houston, then in Missouri City where they were members of the Holy Family Catholic Church. Mary loved being a mom at home, but when all three kids were in school, she started working part-time as the Assistant City Secretary of Missouri City. After several years at Missouri City, she accepted the position of City Secretary of Stafford, Texas where she stayed until she retired. She made life-long friends at her jobs, at church, and in the neighborhood, and she loved Texas, saying it was “the greatest state.”

Mary also enjoyed crafting and creativity. She began oil painting in the garage when the kids were little, along with refinishing old rocking chairs and tables. She arranged flowers, decoupaged, macraméd, and crochéted, and after she retired, she reupholstered chairs, applied new decorative textures to her walls, and then painted them herself.

Mary was a regular 3 times a week at LA Fitness until age 90, staying in shape and making friends at water aerobics. She volunteered at the library at Holy Family Church, and she was a member for many years of the Women’s Club of Missouri City.

She was preceded in death by her husband of 39 years, Frank Burger; her parents, Bernard and Anna Offenburger, and her brother Bernard Offenburger.

She is survived by daughter Lucy Meseberg and her husband Wayne Meseberg, son Frank Burger Jr., son Paul Burger and his wife Patricia Burger, and by her brother Joseph Offenburger.