Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Lois TORRANCE
Lois Torrance Burpee, 71, one of Bucks County's leading residents, died Monday night at New York's Kennedy International Airport. She collapsed as she prepared to leave a plane on which she had returned from England.
Mrs. Burpee, the widow of seed magnate David Burpee, had been returning
from a two-week visit with her sister, Dr. Lydia Torrance-Allen, in London.
She was the mistress of Fordhook Farm, a country estate located on the edge of Doylestown. She used its impressive gardens, its greenhouses and its colonial farmhouse as a base for civic work and efforts on behalf of other worthy causes.
The daughter of a medical missionary, she spent her formative years in Israel and in Scotland. She was taught to help others, wherever and whenever she could. It was a lesson she never forgot.
Soon after her marriage, she and Pearl S. Buck became great friends. And a decade later, in 1949, she joined the author in founding Welcome House. An international adoption agency for Amerasian children, it had its first quarters at Fordhook Farm.
Years later, she became co-founder of the Pearl S. Buck Foundation and served on its board of directors.
Welcome House maintained a presence at Fordhook Farm over the years. In the 35 years since its founding, Mrs. Burpee hosted all monthly board and committee meetings at the farm. Fund-raising functions were held there as well.
Mrs. Burpee was never one to stand on ceremony. Wherever she sensed a need, she stepped in - often to the surprise of those around her.
Guests at luncheon fashion shows that she staged for the benefit of her organizations often found her directing traffic in front of her house or supervising the parking of cars.
A short time later, she would reappear, this time as a waitress serving lunch. After dessert, she would move into the role of hostess - gracious, warm and relaxed.
Customers at the Welcome House Thrift Shop, located on West Court Street in Doylestown, often found her working there. She had been responsible for planning and manning the thrift shop, and it was only natural, she said, that she added her name to the list of those on its work schedule.
In truth, she said, it wasn't really work. It was a pleasure.
Work, she said, was tending to chores in the house and garden. The only way to handle them, she insisted, was to keep them simple. She worked at that.
Simplicity required a strict schedule, she felt. She began her days routinely at 5 a.m. Work in garden and greenhouse, often for two or three hours, came early in the day. In the winter, she went instead to the Central Bucks Family YMCA to swim and exercise.
Going to the Y was almost like going home, she said. It was built on land donated by the Burpees. She served on the board of the Y, worked in its fund- raising drives and last year donated royalties from her book, Lois Burpee's Gardener's Companion and Cookbook, to the cause.
Central Bucks West High School and a sizable chunk of the Route 611 and Route 202 bypasses around Doylestown were also built on portions of Fordhook Farm.
Her cookbook represented one of her attempts to help simplify life.
"I want people to realize there's no harm in being simple - in cooking and living - as long as you've got good taste," she told an interviewer last year.
She said she was troubled by trendy styles of cooking. Recipes of the day often seem directed at covering the flavor of the chief ingredient of a dish. ''They should enhance or complement, not smother," she said.
The worst abuses, in her eye, were committed in cooking vegetables.
"I'm trying to bring people back to tasting, to be conscious of the flavors of vegetables in the pure form," she said.
Mrs. Burpee, an erect, white-haired and vigorous woman, had a wide range of interests. She was active in the Village Improvement Association, which operates Doylestown Hospital. She was founder and president of the Doylestown Preschool Association, a founder of the Bucks County Mental Health Society and an active member of the Doylestown Nature Club.
Surviving are her son, Jonathan; a daughter, Blanche B. Dohan; five grandchildren; three sisters, and a brother.
Memorial services will be held at 2 p.m. today at the Doylestown Presbyterian Church on East Court Street. Contributions in her name may be made to Welcome House, Box 836, Doylestown, Pa. 18901.
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