Adeline Gladys Burnet

Adeline was born in Cincinnati, daughter of Roy Windsor Cobb and Myrtle Hermina Merkhofer Cobb. Her brothers were Bob and Ken; she was particularly close to her sisters, Margie and Carol.

She graduated from secretary school and went to work in a stockbroker’s office. In 1939 she met Miles Burnet; their first date was to see “The Wizard of Oz.” They were married August 23, 1941, and moved to the Cleveland area for his job as a mechanical engineer.

Miles and Adeline had two daughters, Joyce Bonafield-Pierce (Lewie Pierce) and Deborah Burnet (Bob Klonowski). They also had three grandchildren: Alexandra Coniaris (Tony); Joe Klonowski (Emily Kleeman); and Dan Klonowski (Jenny Wardrup); and four great-grandchildren: Peter, Ellie, Charlie, and Owen Coniaris.

After the death of her husband in 1997, Adeline moved to the Chicago area to be close to Deb. She was a resident of the Bethlehem Woods retirement community in LaGrange until 2009, and then moved to the Sunrise community in Olympia Fields.

She loved to travel, enjoying family vacations to summer resorts, Hawaii, and her favorite, the Tetons. She loved dogs and loved to tell about the adventures of all the dogs she’d had.

Late in life she lived with dementia, but to the end of her days she could light up a room with bubbly personality and laughter. At the family dinner on Thanksgiving Day at age 99 she was positively holding court, the center of attention, keeping everybody in stitches. In the last picture we have of her, taken a few days before she died, she is laughing out loud.

She died quietly on Christmas Day 2019, surrounded by her daughters, her sons-in-law, and her grandchildren. As was so often true in all of her long life, her timing was impeccable.