Ada and Erwin

While researching some family history today I came across some information about our great-grandmother Nana Morris's sister Helen Meehan. She had a daughter named Ada after her sister, our great-grandmother. I never knew Helen Meehan Ziegler who died in 1950 but I did know her daughter Ada or at least remember her fondly. We often visited her house when I was young.

She was my mother's cousin or more accurately her father's cousin. She was married Erwin Burk and they lived in the house where she grew up in Ambler, PA. It was in the country, at least for us, and we liked going out to their house on Morris Road. Many years later Becky and I would often drive by their home while driving from our house in Germantown out to Mom's house in Harleysville and I pointed out this home of some relatives. So my great-great grandfather Patrick Meehan was Ada Ziegler Burk's grandfather.

Cousin Ada had an interesting husband. Erwin Burk worked for the AAA (American Auto Association) and his job was to evaluate restaurants and hotels around the country and around the world too. He obviously traveled a lot. Sometimes when we visited he would not be home. Even as a kid I marveled at how this guy had such a great job which was getting paid to visit interesting places, stay in fancy hotels and eat wonderful meals and then write about them.

I looked him up on Ancestry and was amazed to find dozens of listings for him for his travels around the world both by transatlantic liners and airplane flights to Europe. It was incredible to see all that information.

They did not have any children and we lost touch with them a few years after Nana died. I think we saw them a few times in the late 60's but I know I didn't after that. I don't think they were still living in that house when I used to drive past it in the late 1970's but I'll see if I can find out from these sources here. The census documents on the site only go up to 1940. I did see that Ada passed away in 2001 and Erwin in 2003. They would both be in their mid to late 80's. When I knew them they were in their 40's.