Mary Burke Anderson

Mass of Christian Burial for Mary Burke Anderson (née Stanford), 65, Lawrence will be held at noon Tuesday, February 25, 2020, at the St Lawrence Catholic Campus Center in Lawrence, Kansas. Burial will follow in Memorial Park Cemetery, Lawrence. She died unexpectedly last week at home. She was a devoted mother, highly artistic and with exquisite aesthetic sensibility, very private, dignified, and self-effacing, but gracious and generous to all.

She was born April 7, 1954, in Phoenix, AZ, the only daughter of Sharon Butchee Stanford and Olive (Hare) Stanford.

Mrs. Anderson graduated from Camelback High School in 1972 and the University of Kansas with a Bachelor of Arts in Classical Antiquities in 1976. She met Arthur Alexander Anderson on a class trip to Orvieto and married him on August 7, 1980, at the Abbey of Notre-Dame de Fontgombault, France.

Together with her mother and husband, she oversaw the preservation and restoration of the 1040 New Hampshire Street Old English Lutheran Church, adapted to professional office spaces. Along with this building, she successfully campaigned for her mother’s stone farmhouse to also be placed on the National Historic Register. Her own home was the converted civil war era carriage house that belonged to this farmhouse, which she restored while in college, and lovingly referred to as “the barn.” Indirectly through her husband, she was involved in many of the interior design decisions made in the restoration of the Castle Tea Room, and she was a quiet supporter of many of the conservation projects taken by the Lawrence Preservation Alliance.

She is preceded in death by her parents, Olive and Sharon Stanford, and her husband, Arthur. Survivors include her two sons, John Clement Anderson, living in Rome, Italy, and Alexander Stanford Anderson, studying in Glasgow, Scotland.

The family will greet friends from 6 – 8 p.m., Monday February 24, at Warren-McElwain Mortuary. A Parish Rosary will be recited at 6:30 p.m.

The family suggests memorials in her name to the Lawrence Preservation Alliance ( www.lawrencepreservation.org ) and may be sent in care of the mortuary.