SWAMPSCOTT — A longtime resident celebrated a major milestone this weekend: her 100th birthday.
Marion Burke, a former real estate agent, celebrated her May 25 birthday with friends and family with a lunch party Saturday and was surprised with a driveby by the Swampscott Fire Department.
“She told me living to 100 was worth it, because she is surrounded by so many people she loves and realizes how many friends she has made along the way,” said Jaren Landen of Swampscott, Burke’s oldest grandchild out of 20.
Burke raised six children, and her son Joey Burke says that as a stay-at-home mom she would bring them to Fisherman’s Beach every day during the summer, pushing anyone who couldn’t walk yet in a stroller. In the winter, she would get the family out of bed at 5 a.m. to drive up to Killington, Vermont, to ski together. For Marion, who regularly wakes up at 3:30 a.m., this was no problem.
At age 57, Burke became a real estate broker, and earned several awards for her work before retiring at age 98. Even though she is no longer in the business, she likes to keep up to date and regularly checks the new MLS listings on her iPad.
Joey Burke said that his mother never gave in to the competitive culture of the real estate industry.
“They’re always cutting each other’s throats to steal a client and make a sale, and my mother would never do that,” he said. “She’d say, ‘It’s just not that important to me, and if someone is that upset that they need this, go ahead,’ which is a pretty unique characteristic to have.”
For more than 40 years, Joey Burke and his mother have gone out to dinner together every Friday night, he said, only stopping because of the pandemic. He said that they began to expect each night to have someone come up to them in the restaurant to compliment her appearance and how elegant she looked at her age.
“If we didn’t, then my mom was doing something wrong,” he said, laughing. “The wrong lipstick, the wrong earrings. It was the going joke.”
Joey Burke’s fiancee, Patti Ryan, who hosted the party Saturday, agreed that her future mother-in-law has always put the utmost effort into her appearance.
“Marion is always dressed to the nines, complete with her makeup and lipstick, not a hair out of place,” Ryan said. “She just stopped wearing heels two years ago.”
Burke’s daughter Jamie Goldberg, who now lives in Texas, called her mother the heart and soul of the family.
“She adds laughter and fun wherever she is,” Goldberg said. “We all have learned how to live life to the fullest and appreciate each day from my mom. She is the strongest person I know and no challenge in life has ever stopped her.”
