Queen of Everything!
What would you call someone who shoots straight, treats everyone with kindness, charity and respect, doesn’t play the victim even though she’s had her share of challenges, has lived in our neighborhood for nearly 50 years and Springfield her whole life, has pinch hit for her parson in sharing The Word, spent 34 years helping many look more beautiful, and was the catalyst that got security lights in L.A. Wise Park?
Well, how about Queen, which also happens to be her middle name!
Well her full name is Georgia Queen Burton, but those of us who know her affectionately call her Miss Georgia.
Miss Georgia has been associated with the Bissett Neighborhood Association since its inception, and you can always count on her for something good contributed to the potluck dinners before BNA monthly meetings. That may be on account of her many years in food services at Harry Cooper Supply’s employee cafeteria and at Parkview High School.
You can also count on her to say something good and kind about somebody or something almost every time you visit with her. Given her faith and facility for speaking, she is our go-to person to say grace before those pot luck dinners. And when BNA has an event, you can usually find her helping out. Miss Georgia cares about others. In 1970, the first year she moved into the Bissett neighborhood (in just the third house on a block that was largely vacant land overgrown with weeds and brush at the time), there was a day when her husband, Charles, saw a little girl come running out of L.A. Wise Park scared and crying. The poor little thing apparently had been approached by a strange man and it scared her.
Charles and Georgia figured some lighting in the park would help, so they got some neighbors together to petition the City for the lights. Then one day, then-City Councilman Wilson McClinton gave Georgia a call and said the Cty Council would be meeting that night and they should come talk about the need for the lights.
So at the last minute, Georgia said to Charles, “Know what you’re going to do tonight? You are going to go speak to City Council and tell them we need those lights.”
Well, Charles did just that and we have that last minute action by him (and Georgia’s prodding), plus a good City Council vote to thank for the lights. And no, that little girl was not Miss Georgia’s, but was a neighbor, and that was good enough for her.
She isn’t one to say, “Not my problem.” If she sees a way she can make things better, she steps up. As for making women look more beautiful, Miss Georgia was a top sales representative for Avon for decades, and even though she’s no longer doing that, she still helps some of her former clients get Avon supplies.
One doesn’t get to be a top sales person by just showing up. We think her kind way of sharing compliments had a lot to do with it. She’s made a lot of folks look good and feel good too, and she’s pretty good at it.
And the preachers she has known! Miss Georgia used to belong to the historic Benton Avenue AME Church in Midtown, where she recounts former pastors Oliver Brown. He, like Miss Georgia, sought to step up and do something to make things better. So what did Oliver Brown do? He was the named plaintiff in the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court case that outlawed racial segregation in 1954.
At her church, Miss Georgia would sometimes be asked to fill in and speak her thoughts on the scriptures. She liked doing it and we think she was (and is) pretty good at it. So what is the key to Miss Georgia, and the message to all of us about a happy, productive life?
She would say, “I love people no matter who they are or what they look like. We need to get along with one another.”
Faith, hope and charity. Seems like Miss Georgia is living it, and isn’t that what we would want in our very own neighborhood Queen? If you come out to a BNA monthly meeting or an event, seek out Miss Georgia. She’ll probably have something nice— and genuine – to say, and that might just brighten your day.