Jean Hilary (Cook) Burgess Obituary
Peacefully, on November 7, 2025, Hilary Burgess (née Cook) passed away in Toronto in her 96th year. Daughter of John Alan Cook and Florence Jean Alice Cook (née Love); sister to Geoffrey Alan Drayton Cook; and wife of William Howard Burgess. She is remembered by her two daughters, Kathleen Edmondson Little and Jennifer Drayton Edmondson Little; and her stepdaughters. She is also missed by her nieces and nephews: Elizabeth Anne Carswell (Don), Penelope Louise Fraser (Stephen), Jane Helen Charlotte Thompson (Ian), Christopher Geoffrey Alan Cook; and her many great- and great-great-nephews and nieces.
Our Mum was a Bishop Strachan School Old Girl and University of Toronto - St Hilda's College (Trinity College) alumna, of which she was very proud, but she did express concern about BSS relaxing the importance of the Anglican faith. She also earned a Masters of Library Science from the UofT in 1977 and worked as archivist for the Anglican Archdiocese of Toronto for many years. She was a member of the Prayer Book Society and enjoyed travelling and teaching Sunday School.
Regarding the current state of societal collapse, Mum would joke: "'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' I was raised on that you know!" In other words, Nanny and GrandDaddy used that big book on a chair so five-year-old Mum could sit at the dining room table on special occasions.
Night Mum. We all love you.
Her final resting place is at Park Lawn Cemetery in Toronto.
