Dolores Burka

Dolores J. Burka “Dee”, age 90 of Lincoln Park, died peacefully at home on Thursday, April 22, 2021, with the love of adored family by her side. She had lived in Lincoln Park for over 80 years.

Born in Jersey City, the second of Louis and Josephine (Cleary) Scalza’s four children, Dee’s father owned a grocery store in Jersey City. Doing his best to provide for his family, he took to bootlegging on the side. Soon after Dee was born, her family moved to Montville and then Pinebrook Road in Lincoln Park where Dee spent her formidable years. Her dad was strict and her kids were so amazed when Dee told the story about, while growing up, how he made her wear jeans (not something girls did back then) and her brother wear a dress as a punishment for some childhood misdeed. Dee was attending Boonton High School but, like some many young people of her era, her parents pulled her out of school so that she could go to work to make money to contribute to the family. She got a job on the assembly line at Kearfott making baby bottle nipples and pacifiers. Every day she’d walk to the Mountain View Station to take the bus to work and back home.

One night, Dee went on a date to a dance with a young man named John Burka. Of course, they needed to be chaperoned so John’s younger brother Joseph and Dee’s younger sister Ann were designated as the chaperones. After the date, Dee’s sister Ann told Dee that John’s younger brother Joseph was a better fit for her than John. She must have been right because, the next date was with Joe which ultimately led to love, then marriage, then a total of eight children in the baby carriage. Dee and Joe exchanged their wedding promises in front of family and friends on Saturday, May 27, 1950 at St. Joseph Church in Lincoln Park. After a wedding reception at the Russian Hall in Singac, they honeymooned at Dee’s parent’s summer home in the Catskill Mountains of New York State. Dee loved to tell her kids that, during their honeymoon, a porcupine tried to get in the house. They couldn’t get it to stop so they shot it and it still took quite an effort to end its life.

Dee and Joe moved into their new home, built by her father, at 5 Scalza Drive in Lincoln Park. Being a fireman, Joe had the good habit of hanging his pants on the bedpost so he’d be ready to respond to a fire in the middle of the night. Well, Dee and Joe must have gone to bed early on many nights because seven of their eight children were born while living on Scalza Drive. Soon after, they moved to a bigger home at 24 Terrace Parkway in Lincoln Park. There they welcomed child number eight – sweet baby James. Raising eight children would be more than a full-time job for most people but Dee found time to work outside of the home too. She worked a part-time job in the evenings for the Kodak store factory in Wayne. From there she took a job as a check inspector for Deluxe Check in Caldwell. In between all of that, she used her accomplished seamstress skills to make clothing for her family. When children’s weddings came, it was none other than Dee who was called up to make the wedding dresses. In fact, she literally made all five of her daughter’s wedding gowns as well as her three granddaughter’s gowns. When grandchildren came, she made the christening outfits. News of Dee’s seamstress skills spread and eventually she turned sewing into a small business, making outfits for the Lincoln Park Drum Corps and dresses for the local chapter of the Sweet Adeline’s Choir, to name a few.

Besides raising eight children, Dee managed to stay active in many other worthy endeavors. She was a dedicated member of the Lincoln Park Women’s Club, the Lincoln Park Fire Department Fire Company #2 Ladies Auxiliary, and later on in life, the Lincoln Park Seniors. Faithful parishioners of St. Joseph’s Church of Lincoln Park for all of her and Joe’s almost 70 years of marriage, Dee loved getting together with the church’s Knitting Bee Group. While knitting lap blankets for seniors and baby blankets for newborns, Dee and her fellow knitters would have a great time of fun and conversation. In their retirement years, Dee and Joe traveled frequently with friends on trips to Dollywood, Branson Missouri, on a steamboat trip down the Mississippi River and on lots of cruises. They were “Diamond Members” with Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, having enjoyed more than a dozen cruises and they’ve cruised all over the place. Dee and Joe have been to every State except for Hawaii, and their travels are too numerous to count. Dee even made it to Ireland to see where her mom was born.  

Dee was truly a family woman at heart. She enthusiastically hosted every holiday at her house and every single day was a sit down dinner with no television or other distraction. Sunday dinner was always at 2:00 PM. For Dee and Joe’s 25th wedding anniversary, her children gave them money for a trip to Hawaii. Always putting family first, they put in a swimming pool instead. It turned out to be the gift that kept on giving as their backyard became party central including some of their kid’s weddings. Nothing made Dee happier than sitting on her deck to watch her grandchildren and great grandchildren while they swam in that pool. She enjoyed another unique pastime – sitting on that covered deck and listening to the sound of the rain.  

Family life was always an adventure in the Burka home, and Dee and Joe loved to take their family on long road trips which usually included a visit to a National Park or two. As Dee and Joe’s family grew to eventually include twenty grandchildren, they would plan special trips for the grandkids to destinations in the American west. National Parks were always on the agenda, and almost all of their grandchildren have been to the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Four Corners, Jackson Hole, Pike’s Peak and have ridden the Durango & Silverton Railroad in Colorado! At Christmas every grandchild was treated to Disney’s Ice Capades. They made sure that they all had a taste of what life had to offer, and they had great fun spending all that time with family.  Perhaps one of the most memorable stories that came out of all their trips, was in 2003 when they went to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and Dee’s name was added to the “Terrorist” list!  As Dee and Joe were entering and went through the metal detectors, an alert sounded and Dee was apprehended.  It turned out that she had a tiny pocket knife in her purse, as any well-prepared seamstress and mother of eight should have.  But since the events of 9/11 were still very fresh in everyone’s mind, the authorities took the whole incident far out of proportion.  It may not have been so funny at the time, but it makes for good laughs now!  Dee’s children also recall great times spending weekends in the Catskills and sleigh riding on the area golf courses on their enormous Flexible Flyers. Dee has left them all with wonderful and fond memories to cherish for all of their days.

Dee was feisty and spicy but extremely loving! She was the definition of hospitality. You came to her house? You ate! She was full of “Irishisms” like “Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?” and “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out” and “May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead and her favorite “The more I complain, the longer God lets me live.” Dee’s mother was scheduled to be on the Titanic when she came to America. For some reason, she came over a week later on the Lusitania instead. Knowing how many lives Dee touched during the course of her ninety years, it’s unfathomable for her family to imagine that Dee would have never been here if her Mom was on the Titanic. God surely intervened because he knew how many lives she would bless.

Dolores was the beloved wife of Joseph, blessed in marriage for sixty-nine years until his passing in 2019. She was the loving mother of eight children; Joanne Palumbo and her husband John of Cortlandt Manor, NY, Joseph Burka, Jr. and his wife Karen of Brant Lake, NY, Eileen Leech of Lincoln Park, NJ, Donna Wild of Loveland, CO, Philip Burka of Butler, NJ, Annemarie Locilento of Mt. Bethel, PA, Dolores (Lori) Molinaro and her husband Nicholas of Riverdale, NJ, and James Burka and his significant other Carolyn Fazio of Lincoln Park, NJ, twenty grandchildren, seventeen great-grandchildren (plus one on the way), and one great-great-grandchild.

For those wishing to make a donation in lieu of flowers in Dolores’s memory, please consider the Lincoln Park First Aid Squad, 34 Chapel Hill Rd., P.O. Box 332, Lincoln Park, 07035.