Deborah Burke:  

Truthfully, I find it hard to believe that we have been out of High School for more than 40 years. Let's see, who am I. Easy answer-I am a daughter, sister, aunt, gram and I was a wife for 28 years. That is the short answer. The longer story is as follows. I attended the UofM for 2 1/2 years until I met my husband, Joe Burke. I do wish I had completed but, at the time, getting married to my husband seemed the only choice. He was already 30 years old and when you are 20, that seemed really quite old (blame it on youth). We married 5/8/71. We had 3 daughters, Karen (1973), Kelley (1975), Kristen (1983). We lived in Beltsville and the Laurel. We traveled the whole East coast from Canada to Florida. We especially loved the ocean. We were married until his sudden death of a heart attack on 8/31/99. Through the 28 years, we had our ups and downs but, to be honest, I wouldn't change a minute of it. This August 31, will mark the 10th anniversary of Joe's death. A lot has changed in that time...Expand for more