The copper era and Morenci leader. [volume] (Clifton, Ariz.) 1911-1929, 1914-11-27
BURDETTE C 0 ES
To MAKE JOY
IN HEAVEN
Humorist-Preacher Dead After Lcng
and Distinguished Career.

Robert Jones Burdette, the well
known and greatly loved humorIst
ard preacher, died Thursday after
norn at his Sunnycrest nome near
Pasadena.
lie was born ir 1874 in Greensbor-
nu<l Pa, and removed as a boy to
Peol id. ILL.,, where he received com
ICON school educaS on. FTe served as
a private in the Illinois volunteers
during the civil war and afterwards
worked on the Peoria papers until his
removal to Burlington, Ia, in 1872.
He began cultivating good hdmor
obscurely in Peoria forty years ago,
when he spent part of his days at a
desk on the Peoria Transcript try
ing to think" as he himself once re-
lated, 'of pleasant things to tell the
folks when he went home at night ,"
His audience f"folks' then was Car
rie Garrett, the Peoria girl he had
married a short time before, while
she lay supposedly on her death bed,
but who lived and, though an invalid
for life, became immortalized by her
husband as Her Little Serene Hap
piness. 1t was she who encouraged
him to SOW his humor in wider fields
At her bedside Burdette became pro-
life with fun-making contributions to
the Burlington, Ia, Hawkeye, and
through these he became famous the
oJor ssT,I,o D,,rIi,,o o-t[,,,
Hawkeye Man.
The little invalid wife encouraged
him, too, to try the lecture field.
"She kept me at it, said Burdette,
''and in due time we had a lecture
on our hands-"The Rise and Fall of
the 21csstache. +" Burdette insisted
on trying the lecture first in Keoduk
for Keoduk hated Burlington
and if he succeeds there he would
know that it was good. Even Keo-
kuk applauded. The whole United
States later did the same. He be-
came a sort of itinerant preacher.
At sixty, ten years ago, Burdette
was called to the permanent pastorate
of the Temple Baptist church of Los
Angeles.
Although Burdette's original home
was in Greensboro, Pa, where he was
born in 1874, the latter part of his
life was spent in California. At Sun
nycrest, Pasadena, he had a spacious
house with broad verandas. His first
wife had died after fifteen years of
encouragement to him, during which
she had travelled all over the country
with him. In 1899 he married Mrs.
Clara B. Baker of Pasadena.
A fugitive instance OF Burdette's
rollicking humor was a letter home
to his flock in Los Angeles during
his first trip ito Europe. He dated
the letter from some distance out
in the damp" and said in part:
1.-The scenery along this route, al
though somewhat monotonous, is
splendidly irrigated. But it seems too
early for the growing crops. Moth
ing has come up yet, except on ship
board, and that has gone overheard.
The route is not nearly so populous
as the Santa Fe trail over the desert.
We have just two kinds of days-the
days we see a ship and the days we
don't"
The veteran humorist found fun in
everything. While he was forced to
abandon it in the pulpit largely be-
cause of the reputation he had made
for fun-making, he agreed with Henry
Ward Beecher that a joke in the pull
pit was not at all out of place. 1t
was, as Beecher said: when you are
fighting the devil, shoot him with !
anything"
Burdette died with the conviction |!
that there was not only just as much !
fun in the world today as ever, but |
"a great deal more-bceause," as he |
said, there are the funniest things |
on this side of the grave