HILDRETH BURNETT

BURNETT, Hildreth (Dunn) Age 99 years, of Cambridge, MA, daughter of General William McKee and Mildred Eddy Dunn of Washington, DC and Hot Springs, VA, died at home, on June 3, 2023. Born in 1923, Hildreth attended St. Timothy's School and graduated from Bryn Mawr College on D-Day, 1944. From there she went straight to the Pentagon, serving in the War Department Military Intelligence Service (MIS), Special Branch. In 1948, she married Gilbert Burnett of Louisville, KY, from whom she was later divorced. In 1952, she completed her M.A. thesis entitled, Margaret Montgomerie Boswell: A Biographical Sketch of Boswell's Wife, at the University of Virginia. After moving to Cambridge, MA in the early 1950s, she became involved at the Harvard-Yenching Institute, where she helped dozens of visiting academics from China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan navigate life in the United States. A passionate lover of art and poetry and an avid traveler with her longtime companion, Gilbert E. Fuller, Jr., she loved nothing better than visiting the great art museums of Europe and North America and visiting a multitude of friends in the UK, Belgium, France and Germany. She was also a highly competitive chess player and a devoted member of the Nucleus and the Boston Parliamentary Law Club. She is survived by her daughter, Hildreth Burnett Potts; and son-in-law, Daniel Thomas Potts of Garrison, NY; grandchildren, Rowena and Morgan Potts of Sydney, Australia and Hallam Potts of Cambridge, MA; and great-grandchildren, Ambrose Attridge, Iris Attridge and Greta Potts, all of Sydney, Australia. Arrangements for a Memorial Service will be announced at a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Perkins Library, Perkins School for the Blind, 175 North Beacon St., Watertown, MA 02472. Please visit devitofuneralhome.com to view an online guestbook.