Driver lived a life of faith and service
Jerry Burr had to retire from dairy farming in 1982 after a hip replacement. He took up transporting people for a driving service, and his world expanded.
“When he got out of milking and into driving people, that really opened up a whole new world for him. He got to travel and go places. He would go and do driving tours of Pittsburgh. He didn’t get to do that when he had the farm and had to milk twice a day,” said a friend, Dennis Auld, 68, of Harmony.
“I don’t think he ever met a person he didn’t like,” said his daughter Cindy Speck of Zelienople.
Mr. Burr, 79, of Zelienople, died Thursday at UPMC Passavant, McCandless, after a sudden illness.
He was born in 1938 in Harmony Junction. He loved agriculture and became a successful young dairy farmer.
He married Louise “Tunnie” Burr on June 12, 1959. The couple had two daughters, Sandi Everett and Mrs. Speck.
He attended Grace Church of Harmony his entire life. Mrs. Speck said everything her father did was because of his desire to share his faith.
“He wanted other people to know his faith the same way he did,” said another longtime friend, Brad Wise, 67, of Harmony.
Mr. Auld said Mr. Burr was community oriented and couldn’t do enough for the church.
“I would always tease him and say, ‘ Jerry you need to get more involved. You have been here your whole life, and you don’t do anything,’” he said.
Some people knew Mr. Burras the “birthday guru.’’
“In our church newsletter, they publish the month’s birthdays,” Mrs. Speck said. “He was great at looking at those, and each week he would know whose birthday it was and stand by the door andgreet them.”
“You could always count on Jerry saying happy birthday to you the week of your birthday,” Mr. Wise said.
He was a member of the church choir for 67 years.
“He loved to sing, but he really enjoyed the camaraderie,” Mrs. Burr said.
Mr. Burr’s passion for performing was passed on to his daughters. Mrs. Everett has played piano for the church for more than 25 years. And Mrs. Speck has performed as a ventriloquist around the Pittsburgh area since she was a child.
“He had me and my sister singing from a very young age,” Mrs. Speck said. “He would have us sing at home, in church and anytime we had people come to the house.”
His family said he had a different story for every day. He wrote a book about the first 50 years of his life that was never published called “My Life to God Be the Glory.” It was filled mostly with stories from his driving service days.
“One time he was picking up a group of six Chinese men in Cranberry to take to the airport,” Mrs. Burr recalled. “They came out with all this luggage and started loading it into the van. He thought, ‘How are they fitting all of this luggage into the van?’ Sure enough, when he walked around to the side of the van, the luggage was falling out the other side.”
Mr. Burr volunteered and served on the boards of numerous organizations including the Salvation Army, Southwest Butler County Food Cupboard, Connoquenessing Valley Community Chest, Meals on Wheels and Caps for Kids, knitting and donating more than 6,000 children’s caps himself. He would also take time each week to call or visit anyone he knew who was living alone.
“He would always come back from a visit or a day of caring for others and say, ‘That was the greatest day ever,’” Mrs. Burr said.
Mrs. Speck said her father’s life could be described by this quote from John Wesley: “Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.”
In addition to his wife and daughters, he is survived by six grandsons.
Visitation is from 1 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday and from 1 to 4 p.m. Friday at the Boylan Funeral Home, 324 E. Grandview Ave. in Zelienople. The funeral is at 6:30 p.m. Friday at Grace Church of Harmony.
The church is expecting so many people to be interested in the funeral that it will live stream the service on YouTube and is asking people to carpool.