Betty Ann Burch, 92, died Oct. 6, 2017. She was born in East Chicago, Indiana, on Nov. 7, 1924. She lived in St. Anthony Park and Como Park for many years.
Betty Ann attended Purdue University and graduated from Calumet College with a B.A. in English in 1964. She received her M.A. in English from De Paul University in 1967 and completed her Ph.D. in American Studies at the University of Minnesota in 1973. Betty Ann taught literature and writing at St. Joseph’s College in Whiting, Ind.; St. Francis College in Biddeford, Maine; and at Northland College in Ashland, Wis. She held several positions at the Minnesota Legislature from 1980 to 1988.
Betty Ann enjoyed travel, especially to England and Iceland. She enjoyed the theater, drawing and printmaking. She did freelance writing as a theater critic for Skyway News, had her poems published in professional journals, and her 1973 study, “The Assimilation Experience of Five American White Ethnic Novelists of the Twentieth Century,” is being re-released this very October.
She was preceded in death by her sister, Margaret, and brother-in-law, Mike Kelly. She is survived by two nephews and three nieces, as well as by great- and great-great-nephews and nieces.
