Description

Helen Burmister as a baby 1886.

Helen Burmister (b. 1886 – d. 1974) was born May 8, 1886 in Prescott, Arizona. Her parents were Robert H. Burmister (b. August 17, 1847 – d. May 15, 1926) and Margaret “Maggie” Foreman Bashford Burmister (b. 1850 – d. 1917). Her two siblings were Robert Bashford Burmister (1874 – 1945) and Howard Coles Burmister (1880 – 1956). The family home was at 116 S. Mt. Vernon Avenue. She attended Prescott schools.

On August 31, 1908 she married Lieutenant Ralph Rigby Glass of the Twenty-First Infantry, United States Army. Ralph Glass was born in 1880; died in 1954. Following their marriage, they settled at the Whipple Barracks, Fort Whipple, Prescott, AZ and then moved to other posts. They had two sons: Robert Rigby Glass (1914 – 1979) and Gage Everett Glass. In 1917, she was living in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. Helen died December 29, 1974 in Monterey, California.

Helen’s parents were both highly respected members of the Prescott community. Robert Burmister came to Prescott in 1874 as a member of the firm of Levi Bashford & Co. That firm became the Bashford & Burmister, which in 1892, was organized as a stock company, of which he was president. In 1900, with his two sons, he started another commercial concern, R. H. Burmister & Sons Co, where he was president until 1913 when he closed it. 

After retiring from the mercantile business, he devoted his time to several mining interests. He served as Prescott’s mayor in 1900 and filled a position on the Arizona State Board of Equalization. He also established a real estate business.

Her mother, Margaret Forman “Maggie” Bashford Burmister (b. 1850 – d. 1956) was born June 8, 1850 in Clyde, New York. Shortly after her birth, her family moved to Oshkosh, Wisconsin where her father entered into politics and became the Governor of Wisconsin (1855 – 1858). Her father traveled to Prescott in early 1864 where he was involved with several businesses and was a member of the Arizona Upper Legislative House. The family, however, appears to have remained in Wisconsin.

Maggie married Robert Burmister in 1873 in Wisconsin. Arriving in Prescott in 1874, Maggie was active in Prescott’s social life including being a member of the History and Poetry Study group, the Monday Club and the First Congregational Church. She died July 28, 1917 in San Francisco, California while visiting Helen and her son Robert. She is buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California. Maggie is honored in the Territorial Women’s Memorial Rose Garden at the Sharlot Hall Museum.

Sources: Arizona Daily Star, wedding date announcement for August 16, 1908; Family Search; Margaret (Bashford) Burmister profile in the Territorial Women’s Memorial Rose Garden; Robert Bashford obituary (unattributed) in Sharlot Hall Museum Research Center files.