Anna T. Burr celebrates over a century in Bordentown
By: Stephanie Prokop
Former Bordentown teacher and principal Anna T. Burr will be celebrating her 107th birthday on Monday. She spoke of the milestone nonchalantly while sitting in an armchair in her room at Medford Leas retirement home earlier this week. She said that she is looking forward to a quiet birthday with no major events planned.
Ms. Burr says she’s of British ancestry, but her family has lived in the United States for seven generations, dating back to the mid-1800s in Bordentown.
Ms. Burr was born March 12, 1900, she said she has seen it all when it comes to modern conveniences, including the first time that her father, mother and brother had electricity in their Bordentown home.
"Prior to electricity we had oil lamps, which were a pain to maintain because you had to trim the wick everyday," she said
"My mother and father went away, and left me and my brother, who was three years older than I, alone with the maid," she recalled. "The telephone started to ring and the maid panicked because she didn’t know how to turn it off," she said.
Ms. Burr’s father was a prominent Bordentown businessman.
"My brother and I grew up in the center of business," said Ms. Burr, referring to the merchant store that her father ran out of one side of the house, on the corner of Farnsworth Avenue and Crosswicks Street.
"It was known as ‘Burr’s Corner,’" she said. "One side was our dry goods and grocery store, and the other side had a hardware shop and insurance office. My dad moved there in 1859 and I lived there until 1942."
"Every time someone moved into town and opened up a business, my father would shift what he was selling so that we were the only ones in town selling that particular thing," she said.
When Ms. Burr was 17, her father died, leaving her mother, Elizabeth, to run the business.
"My mother continued to operate the dry goods and notion store until 1930," she said. "She was the first woman to have a business in Bordentown."
After her father passed away, Ms. Burr said it was a financial challenge to complete her education and become a teacher.
Ms. Burr graduated from the old New Jersey Normal School, (now known as The College of New Jersey), in the early 1920s. After she obtained her bachelor’s degree in education, she went on to get a master’s in education from Rutgers University.
Ms. Burr became a teacher, but never married, saying she never found a person who suited her.
Ms. Burr taught for 10 years at Bordentown High School, Bordentown Middle School, and Bordentown Elementary School.
She said at the time when she was a administrator, in the mid 1930s, education seen as was strictly between the student and the teacher. Now, she said that parents have a much larger say in what goes on in the school.
For fun, Ms. Burr recalled when her father used to load up the "Tin Lizzy" slang for the popular Model T crank-automobile put out by Ford in the early 1920s, for family trips to Atlantic City.
Ms. Burr also spoke of trips to Texas she used to take with her friend Evelyn Beckworth, who passed away in 2003. The two used to take trips frequently to Texas to visit family they each had there.
Ms. Burr and Ms. Beckworth joined the Medford Leas Retirement Community together in 1983.
Ms. Burr said she prides herself on not taking any medications except for over-the-counter vitamins and can still walk with the help of a walker, although she sometimes does use her electric scooter for convenience.
She participates in hourlong exercise classes twice a week. Ms. Burr said that her most recent accomplishment was being honored at a special annual luncheon for Medford Leas active centenarians.
Ms. Burr is the oldest out of 700 residents residing at Medford Leas.

