Montezuma County, CO Biography Project

Samuel Morton Burke

Biography & Obituary

"Stroke of Paralysis Fatal to S. M. Burke Who Suffered the Attack While at Work Friday"

"Samuel Morton Burke was born at Geneva, Indiana on the 5th day of May, 1864 and departed this life at Cortez, Colorado, on the 15th day of February, 1935, at 6:45 in the evening at the age of seventy years, nine months and ten days.

He leaves surviving him his wife, Beatrice E. Burke, his son Charles M. Burke of Cortez, his daughter, Mable E. Son of Idaho Springs, Colorado, two sisters Grace Ellis Titus of Macon City, Iowa, and Lidda Shrimp of Portland, Indiana, and one brother, Ralph Burke of Gallup, New Mexico, all being present except the two sisters who were unable to come.
His boyhood days were spent at Geneva on the banks of the Wabash where he received his education and grew to manhood in that great wooded country. At the age of twenty-one in the year 1885, he felt the lure of the west and moved to Hugo in the eastern part of Colorado where he made one of the first homesteads in that section. Later he moved to First View, Colorado, a town near the Kansas line and it was there he learned telegraphy under the tutelage of the station agent at that place. His first positions in this line were the pioneer cow towns of the west, when every fall thousands of long horned Texas steers were driven from the Panhandle through Kit Carson to Dodge City for shipment accompanied by cowboys for years.

After five years of this interesting western life, he moved to Wiona, Kansas, to accept the position of telegrapher and dispatcher at that place. It was there he met Beatrice E. Murray then teaching at Wiona High School, and it was there he was married to her in the year of 1890, Forty-five years ago. their son, Charles was born at Wiona. In 1891 the family moved to Durango, Colorado, where he was employed at the Durango station for a short time. He was then given the position of dispatcher at Ridgeway where he remained for a year, moving from that place to Rico to take charge of that station as agent which position he held for some nine years, during the boom days oSamuel Morton Burke bio.ems f that famous mining camp. It was there that their daughter, Mable was born. After the slump came to Rico, he accepted the position of agent at Mancos, Colorado, remaining there until 1907 moving then to Cortez where he was engaged with the R.R. Smith Mercantile Co.. In 1910 he was elected to the office of county Clerk and Recorder of Montezuma County on the Republican ticket to which office he was elected for eight successive terms. In 1927 he was appointed to the office of Secretary of the Montezuma Valley Irrigation Company which position he filled until the very last.

We only need listen to the recounting of his life's history to understand why it was that his friends were numbered only by the number of his acquaintances. The free, broad, expanding life of the West as he dealt with men who were shippers, when applied to his open and generous nature, developed a character that was especially attractive to men.

Yet there was no man more modest or retiring. He was ambitious to perform his service in the best possible manner and when this was done, he wanted to go home. He was possessed of that rare quality of being able to enjoy those simple , beautiful things that are near at hand and are found in one's own dooryard. The most interesting place to him was his home, cutting the grass, doing his chores, sitting in his congenial living room, listening to the radio, and in the summer on his front Porch watching the evening fade into darkness of the night. He cared not for that which was glamorous. a distinguished man with a kindly nature and all the children and all the dogs of the neighborhood were his friends. His last act was a smile and a wave of the hand and a "thank you" to his friends who carried him in and laid him down. He was a gentleman in every instinct. His trail was straight and true. With this record there need be no fear of the sting of death."

This bio is from the "Montezuma Valley Journal" Cortez, Montezuma County, Colorado Thursday February 21, 1935 Number 42

Contributed by Sarah Beattie