Mary Burke

Mary Griggs Burke was born on June 20, 1916, in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the only child of Theodore W. Griggs and Mary Livingston Griggs. She died on December 8, 2012, in New York City. She resided in Oyster Bay, New York. Raised in Saint Paul, she attended Summit School and upon graduation attended Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, and then Columbia University. She was preceded in death by her parents and by her husband, Jackson Burke. Mrs. Burke was a prominent philanthropist and art collector. She served on many boards of directors, including Sarah Lawrence College, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Asia Society. She and her husband founded the Cable Natural History Museum in Cable, Wisconsin, where the Griggs family had a summer estate called Forest Lodge. Forest Lodge was given by Mrs. Burke to the Trust for Public Land, and through them it was transferred to the U.S. Forest Service and will become a national center for the environment. Mrs. Burke received honorary degrees from Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin, and from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. In 1987, she was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure by the Japanese government. Her collection of Japanese art has been shown prominently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Tokyo National Museum in Japan, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in Minneapolis, and many other institutions in this country and abroad. There are no immediate survivors, but Mrs. Burke is survived by numerous loving cousins and friends. She was descended from Colonel Chauncey Griggs and Crawford Livingston. Graveside services will be held at Oakland Cemetery with burial in the Livingston family plot on Wednesday, December 12, 2012 at 11:00 A.M. Memorials are preferred to Sarah Lawrence College, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Cable Natural History Museum or charity of donor's choice.