Shirley Burress

It is with a mix of sadness and celebration that we let you know our mother, Shirley McLeod Burress passed away the morning of May 1, 2024, at the age of 94. She was married to Tom Burress and was his biggest champion for 62 years. Tom went on ahead in 2015. Shirley and Tom gave this world five children: Camille (Edward) Harding, Kent (Michael) Burress, Jeff Burress, Cindy (Billy Wayne) Davis, and CaryeSu Reeder. Those five children blessed their parents with dozens of grandchildren and great grandchildren. Mother loved the times when we would all come together and fill up her house.

 In her life Shirley had many roles, but above all she was a musician and teacher. She played piano for church, just about every time the church doors were open, until her fingers were just no longer able to jump from note to note. Even then she would play at home on the new piano Tom had surprised her with when her old piano, on which she had taught countless students to play, finally played out.

 She spent most of her life in public school classrooms teaching English and music. She loved the written word, and authored and published a Zane Grey genre romantic novel titled “Two Rode Lonely”. 

 Generations of students sang with her and heard the music of Chopin, Beethoven, Debussy, Gershwin– an entire world of music some never knew existed until they sat in her classrooms. 

 Beyond the school classroom, she loved teaching Sunday School to her peer group of mothers and wives through the years. In addition to those Sunday morning lessons, she would send regular letters with individual notes of encouragement, inspiration, hope, and at times admonition to her class members. Until September of her 93rd year, Shirley gathered her Willow Grove ladies in her home every Tuesday afternoon for bible study. True to the teacher she was, she once shared her concern that they didn’t always prepare their lessons in advance and often spent a lot of time just talking to each other.

 Shirley was a gentle but indomitable force to be reckoned with. You pretty much always knew where she stood on any topic. Her strength helped mold the lives of “rascally” students, shepherded and lifted up downtrodden friends and family, herded wayward cattle across the pastures, baled seeming endless fields of hay in the summer, and loved and held her family together even through the roughest of times.

 On her 94th birthday in January, Shirley said “I just don’t know who I am anymore.” Not that she couldn’t remember who she was, but rather she just didn’t know what she was supposed to do anymore. All the years of a life fully lived and spent caring for others had brought her to being the person receiving the care, and that was an unfamiliar role for her. Special thanks to Hillside Medical Lodge in Gatesville for caring for her needs these last few months when her family no longer could, and for making her feel loved and special most every day.

 So, one last lesson from Shirley. Often, it’s in those times of not knowing who we are anymore that we return to knowing who we have always been.

Derrick Walcott, a West Indies poet, and Professor at Yale – and another lover of the written word, shared these thoughts:

The time will come

when, with elation

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror

and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

What a feast of life Shirley has shared with us all.

 A graveside service to celebrate Shirley’s life will be held at Lawler Cemetery on Thursday, May 9, 2024, at 11:00 am.

 Those wishing to honor Shirley’s life work are encouraged to send contributions to the Florence ISD Education Foundation at PO Box 713, Florence, Texas 76527 or Communities in Schools, Greater Central Texas.