JEAN HILARY BURGESS

Peacefully, on November 7, 2025, Jean Hilary Burgess (née Cook) passed away in Toronto in her 96th year. Daughter of John Alan Cook and Florence Jean Alice Cook (née Love); sister to Geoffrey Alan Drayton Cook; wife of William Howard Burgess; and sister-in-law to Elizabeth Benedict (née Burgess). She is remembered by her two daughters, Kathleen Edmondson Little and Jennifer Drayton Edmondson Little; and her stepdaughters, Ellen Elizabeth Burgess and Ruth Isabel Burgess. She is also missed by her nieces and nephews: Elizabeth Anne Carswell (Don), Penelope Louise Fraser (Stephen), Jane Helen Charlotte Thompson (Ian), Christopher Geoffrey Alan Cook, Dale Benedict (Marion); and her many great and great, great-nephews and nieces. Our Mum was a BSS and University of Toronto, Trinity alumni, of which she was very proud, but she did express concern about BSS relaxing the importance of the Anglican faith. She was also an ardent supporter of the Prayer Book Society of Canada and gave a dismissive wave of her hand to any peacenik nonsense about the singing of "Onward Christian Soldiers." On trips to Muskoka, we would be charged with finding the perfect rock to put in her garden, and on the way home, we would stop in at that Canadian tradition of a hamburger from Webers. Regarding the current state of societal collapse, Mum would joke: "'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' I was raised on that you know!" … in other words, Nanny and Grandaddy used that big book on a chair so five years old Mum could sit at the dining room table on special occasions. Night Mum. We all love you. The Funeral will take place at Christ Church Deer Park, 1570 Yonge Street, Toronto, on Friday, November 14, 2025, at 11:30 a.m. Her final resting place will be at Park Lawn Cemetery in Toronto.