Ann Burk

The LORD is my Rock, and my Fortress, and my Deliverer; the God of my rock; in Him will I trust: He is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my Saviour. 2 Samuel 22:2, 3 

Jane Ann (Wallace) Burk was born on September 19, 1954 in Indiana, PA, to Lawrence and Georgena (Risinger) Wallace. 

She went home to be with her Lord on February 6, 2024, at sixty-nine years of age. 

Ann was the eldest of five siblings, growing up, as her father told her husband-to-be, “a hard worker.” Raised on a dairy farm, she couldn’t just stop for a headache or some other minor ache or pain. She learned to persevere at a young age. She would work on her studies and memorization while she did her chores, with her books propped beside her work area in the dairy barn. 

At the young age of nineteen she married a twenty-three year old pastor, Stephen Burk, a “confirmed bachelor” who changed his mind upon meeting her at Allegheny Wesleyan Bible College. She moved with him from Pennsylvania to far-off Missouri. She was a pastor’s wife all her life. As a newlywed bride, she helped with the many duties of leading a small country church. She was a foundational part of her husband’s pastoral work, and was a source of encouragement and godly counsel for many. 

She was the mother of Michael (Melissa Yoder), Esther, Elisabeth (Darrell Ramer), Eunice (Joseph Miller), Daniel, and Dorcas (Kent Kropf). 

She was a generous, patient, and loving wife, mother, and grandmother. Her creativity branched into all areas of her life, whether it was painting, flower gardening, or using bread bags over shoes as makeshift snow boots for her small children when money was tight. Her children and grandchildren knew her as an endless source of fun activities, helping them build playhouses out of sheets and clotheslines, masterminding marvelous leaf houses and leaf jumping piles in the fall, and creating an endless list of projects for them to work on together. 

She was preceded in death by her husband, Stephen Burk, and her mother, Georgena (Risinger) Wallace. 

She is survived by her father, Lawrence Wallace, her four siblings, Tom, Beth, Ruth, and Tim, her six children, and eighteen grandchildren. 

She will be sorely missed by all who knew her.