R555
Husband: William Burger Wood (Fig. R555a)
Father: Lewis E. Wood [R005]
Mother: Emma (Wood) Burger [R005]
Born: 1/11/1888, at “Wood home near Nimrod Hall”
Died: 10/31/1981. Buried in Horeb Baptist Church cemetery, Bath
County
Wife: Louise (Driscoll) Wood (Figs. R555b, c)
Father: James Edward Driscoll
Mother: Jessie (Gillock) Driscoll
Born: 12/25/1899, in Rockbridge County Va.
Died: 1993
Married: 1/19/1921
Foster child:
Barbara J. Kayton, b. ~1937, Burger and Louise assumed custody
~1941. She m. William H. Judy; they live in Florida. Daus. Kathy,
Lynn, Laura.
(1996) William Burger was the first of Lewis and Emma Wood’s children born at the McDannald Place. He was named for his maternal grandfather.
Burger worked for the U.S. Post Office Department. By the time he was 21 (1909) he was a railway mail clerk, one of an army of postal employees who in those days worked in the railroad mail cars, sorting mail while their train sped toward its next destinations. He maintained a residence in the vicinity of Nimrod Hall, but was away about half the time, and at one point gave his address as “R.R.YMCA., Washington D.C.” As Fig. R555a and other pictures in [S091] suggest, Burger was something of a blade as a young man. In a letter to her son Kemp, 10/22/1919, Burger’s mother Emma Wood sniffs “Burger...went to Roanoke to a shriner’s meeting of the Masons, you know he is a great Mason now, well it must have been quite a banquet as he with severl of his other friends got very sick, he had to go to Kate’s & stay until he got able to go out on his own a gen, was right sick but he will be home sometime this week...” (Sister Kate [R554] lived in Roanoke at the time. She must have told on him.)
Louise was born in Balcony Falls, Rockbridge County, but her family moved in March of the next year to Clifton Forge. She was one of nine children born live, of whom only six lived beyond infancy. Burger met Louise when he rented a room from her parents in Clifton Forge. They disapproved of Burger dating Louise, perhaps because he was an “older man;” the two could only go out together if they took all of Louise’s brothers and sisters with them.
Burger and Louise married in 1921, but it was some time before they set up a household. As late as 1928 [S089] speaks of Louise “talking about going to housekeeping.” Having no children, with Burger gone much of the time, and with the option of staying at Nimrod or with Louise’s parents in Clifton Forge, the incentive to set up a household may have been small. They rented a room in a boarding house in Millboro that they used when Burger was home from his railroad runs. Sometimes they wintered in Washington DC, but Louise was unhappy there.
Often they stayed at Nimrod; in that period [S089] refers repeatedly to the support the couple gave to the labors of Lewis and Emma Wood. (However, Burger and Louise paid board for these stays. Sarah Davis [S149], Louise’s Executor, writes “I have the checks & Aunt Louise insisted that I keep them forever because at some point Aunt Else, Aunt Matt & Aunt Dede called them ‘freeloaders.’ Aunt Louise’s only luxury in life was that during those early years when Burger was away on the railroad, she used her free pass to travel to Staunton to take piano lessons at Mary Baldwin College.”) In a letter to her mother in the hospital, 8/18/1928, Elsie Wood says “from side reports, I think Burger and Louise have most bought a house, Mrs. Landers place over the old Post Office, I can’t imagine why Burger would get that place. Louise does a good bit of talking about going to house keeping, putting up fruit and so on. I think that is the best thing they can do.” This is probably a reference to the home they eventually acquired in Millboro, where they lived for many years. They ran a Mick-or-Mack general store on the first floor, across the road from the railroad platform. Louise had most of the work to do, since Burger was gone much of the time. I dimly remember the place.
In 1948, Burger turned 60 and presumably retired from the Post Office Department. About that time he and Louise sold their Millboro property and moved to a house within sight of Nimrod Hall. According to [S133 and S149] they bought their new property from “...a Mrs. Lyons, who built it for her daughter Mabel Conner. Mrs. Lyons was a Rhea who lived on the river but married a WEALTHY man from Baltimore.” Burger and Louise finished their lives there. For many years Burger was the repository of Wood genealogical information.
