Helen Claire Burkhardt

Helen Claire Burkhardt, known to all who knew her as simply “Claire,” died on November 19, 2016. She was 86. She was devoted to her husband Darrel Burkhardt, who predeceased her in 2003. Together they raised two children, Carolyn E. Scott, of Afton, N.Y., and John D. Burkhardt, Jr., of Tacoma, Wash. Claire was born in Reading, Penna., and spent the very beginning of her life in the small Pennsylvania-coal-country town of Womelsdorf, Berks County, and the surrounding area. Her father, Ernest Charles Rowland, moved the family (Claire, her mother Ena, nee McManus, and older brother William) to a number of places, as dictated by his career as a landscape architect. When he joined the National Park Service and worked for the CCC during the depression, they lived in northwest Alabama, and then a mountain plateau town in Tennessee. When he took a job with the Veterans Administration, they settled in suburban Washington, D.C. Claire graduated from high school in Falls Church, Va., then got her undergraduate degree in Williamsburg, Va., at the College of William & Mary. She received a Master of Social Work degree from Virginia Commonwealth University, and took her first professional position at Pilgrim State Hospital (now Pilgrim Psychiatric Center), in Brentwood, N.Y., on Long Island. After a short time, she relocated to the state psychiatric hospital in Binghamton, N.Y., the city where she was to live the rest of her life. Beside her professional career--which included stints at the Association for Retarded Citizens of Broome & Tioga Counties (known today as ACHIEVE) and the Blind Work Association (known today as AVRE, the Association for Vision Rehabilitation & Employment)—she was an exceptional singer. She had a performing career in the earliest days of the Tri-Cities Opera Company of Binghamton, one of the nation’s first regional opera companies, singing coloratura soprano roles in works such as Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte, Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, Puccini’s La Boheme, and others. It was through the opera that she met Darrel, a journalist and future owner of the short-lived Studio Book Shop, who wooed her with his knowledge of classical music. They were married in 1958 at the First Universalist Church of Binghamton. Later, she sang for many years with the Binghamton Symphony Chorus, Binghamton’s Downtown Singers, and the choir of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Binghamton. Claire was liberal in her politics as well as her friendships. She was a staunch volunteer with the League of Women Voters, Altrusa International, PEO, and similar organizations, always engaged with women’s causes, and working to improve access to education for women of all backgrounds. She was an avid reader (she routinely polished off a paperback-a-day), a whiz at crossword puzzles, and eternally patient with her husband, Darrel, who was an obsessive collector of “paper Americana” and who filled the house from basement to attic with ephemera. During their years of marriage, she didn’t quibble with his role as the decision-maker, but her own tastes flourished in her widowhood, for example, eating chicken and fish again, a no-no while her husband was alive. In retirement, Darrel and Claire traveled extensively, specializing in rail-themed tours. They participated with gusto in Lyceum, the lifelong-learning affiliate of Elderhostel sponsored by Binghamton University. After Darrel died, Claire continued to live on her own in their West Side Binghamton home. Recently she had relocated to the Hilltop Manor campus of United Methodist Homes. Claire is survived by her son John; daughter Carolyn; sister-in-law Jeanne Rowland of Maryland; and nephews David Rowland of Michigan, William Rowland, Jr., of Virginia, and John Allen Rowland of Maryland. The family suggests memorial contributions may be made to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Binghamton, 183 Riverside Dr., Binghamton, N.Y.