Laura Anne "Lolly" Burton, a retired kindergarten teacher and educational consultant, died of complications from a stroke June 10 at the Broadmead retirement community in Cockeysville. The former Gibson Island resident was 88.
Born Laura Anne McPhee in Ames, Iowa, she was the daughter of Dr. Harry Roemer McPhee and Mary Zeigler McPhee. She was raised in Princeton, N.J., and earned her teaching degree at Wheelock College in Boston before moving to Glendale, Ohio, to marry M. Tylor Burton.
She taught kindergarten in the Hudson, Ohio, school district after raising her family.
She moved to Gibson Island in 1975 and earned a master's degree at Towson University. She became an early childhood educational consultant for the Maryland State Department of Education and was part of a traveling team whose members worked to improve kindergarten and pre-K programs. She then taught kindergarten at the Gibson Island Country School for 15 years until her retirement in 1995.
Family members said she taught 5-year-olds because she felt she could have the biggest influence on children of that age. She also wrote letters to her former students and saved those she received from them.
Mrs. Burton was a supporter of the Keewaydin family of camps in Vermont. She was a contributor to the Keewaydin Foundation.
She and her husband moved to Broadmead in Cockeysville and traveled with family to Costa Rica, Vermont and Holland, Mich.
Services will be held at 2 p.m. Aug. 22 at St. Christopher's by the Sea in Gibson Island.
Survivors include three sons, Spence Burton of McLean, Va., Tylor Burton of Catonsville and Angus Burton of Lutherville; a daughter, Laurie Burton-Graham of Gibson Island; two brothers, H. Roemer McPhee of Potomac and John A. McPhee of Princeton, N.J.; and 10 grandchildren. Her husband of 58 years died in 2007.