Bennie Jean Burnham Love

Bennie Jean Burnham Love, matriarch to the Love family, passed away on Sunday, August 23, 2020, surrounded by her four daughters in her beloved home in Fairhope, AL. She was 90. Born January 17, 1930, in Hanceville, Alabama – the first of four sisters – she was named after her father, Bennie Alvin Burnham. Her family worked a farm that raised pigs and grew cotton, corn, and strawberries. From her mother, Reba Irene Hamrick Burnham, she inherited a knack for knowing everything that’s going on, even when nobody is saying a word, as well as her ability to stretch any quantity of food to feed a crowd. From her father, she learned frugality, practicality, and stubbornness, as well as the insistence of his father, Papa Burnham, always to “be particular.” She nurtured and guided her younger sisters—Willette, Theda, and Betty—although she and Willette did once toss Theda between the barn and chicken coop roofs while their mother was resting. She preferred overalls to dresses, which she wore begrudgingly to school with the stockings rolled down. She commanded respect from friends and foes alike. She got in only one fight at school, but she won. In September 1949, she married James Neal Love, her high school sweetheart, after completing just one year of college. She put Jim through college and seminary, and he served as a pastor in The United Methodist Church. They moved among rural parishes in Alabama to guide different flocks. Fiercely protective of her four daughters—Kathy, Jan, Angie, and Melanie—she rescued them from choking, drowning, and a rattlesnake. She helped the family heal after the Ku Klux Klan, threatening Jim for his 1958 support of the city bus desegregation, burned a cross on their lawn. She made all of her own and her daughters’ clothes, copying the fashionable dresses she saw in stores and magazines, and always provided the girls with good leather shoes, even when money was tight. She had a strong penchant for fashion, even sewing Willette’s tea-length wedding gown (with gloves to match), and helped her sisters care for their own children. By Jim’s side, she enthusiastically participated in (and on occasion endured) countless hours of church services, Sunday School classes, choir practices, women’s circles, as well as the not-so-Christian machinations of the Methodist “good ole boys.” When warranted, she had a noteworthy temper and a sharp tongue, and she brooked no criticism from members of various congregations on how she was raising her daughters. Through the years, she built a home in which family, friends, and strangers alike felt welcome and were always well fed. Jean’s extraordinary hospitality and deep care for others extended to her vocation as a social worker. Itching for independence, she returned to college and graduated from Livingston University in 1969. That year she began her social work career by investigating child abuse under the supervision of Doris Bender and the Department of Pensions and Security. In 1976, she joined the staff of St. Mary’s Children’s Home, a Catholic residential facility for neglected children. During Hurricane Frederick in 1979, she stayed to protect the children even as most other staff headed north for safety. Before her retirement in 2001, she served as the supervisor of social work for Saad’s Healthcare, where she implemented an innovative monthly continuing education program for social workers and nurses. As supervisor, she also ensured continuous, progressive, and personalized care for elderly people in need of assistance at home. The National Association of Social Workers, Alabama Chapter, recognized her outstanding achievements, including introducing the role of social work to home healthcare in the state, and awarded her the 1994 “Social Worker of the Year Award.” She proved that she did not need an MSW degree to be the best in her field. Jean’s divorce from Jim in 1976 ushered in a renewed life featuring travel and music. Her spirit of adventure took her across the country and the world with her family and friends, from cross country escapades to riverboat cruises on the Mississippi to New York City, London, and Florence, Italy. She loved jazz and spent many nights sipping bourbon and dancing in New Orleans jazz joints. Around 1980, she met the love of her life, a generous and cranky trumpet aficionado named Jens Jensen. They built a partnership of profound (and cantankerous) love as well as mutual respect. Earning the nickname “Band Aid,” she often drove the band’s tour van and managed their concerts. His premature death from prostate cancer in 1993 left a profound wound, but she kept his memory alive by telling countless stories of their adventures together. Jean moved to Fairhope in 1989, where she and Jens renovated a red house that became the center of the Love family universe. Her daughters and grandchildren, even when they lived far away, always returned for frequent visits, especially at Christmas. Singularly dedicated to family gatherings, every year she cooked a feast on Christmas Eve—turkey, ham, cornbread dressing, twice-baked potatoes, and a large variety of desserts including pecan pie, cheese cake, the best chocolate fudge cake you ever had, and more—and welcomed family and friends alike, providing a gift for each person so that everyone felt included. She deeply loved each of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and she shared with them all that she had, both through presents and through time and attention and care. Because she loved the sea and sailing, she dreamed of winning the lottery and buying a big house on the Gulf Coast that could fit the whole family; but for her loved ones, her little red house was enough. In her support and care for others, she embodied the values of love, grace, generosity, honesty, integrity, justice, common sense, humor, and independence, and she taught her family to do the same. She lived by these values until the end. In a time of incalculable, lonely suffering and death around the world, her daughters are grateful that she died peacefully at home and surrounded by her family. She is survived by her sister Willette Burnham Chesnutt (Thomas); her daughters Kathryn Love McMaken (Michael Edward McMaken, deceased), Janice Love (Peter Carl Sederberg, deceased), Angela Love (Terri Ann Rushing), Melanie Love Smith (Edward Lee Dingler Smith); her grandchildren Kristin Nicole LeMaitre (Andrew Bellamy Barker), Melissa Renée LeMaitre (Paul Jeremiah McCann), Rachel Elin Love, Per Benjamin Sederberg (Laurel Megan Feigley), Kathryn Michelle McMaken, Michael Bren Hamrick McMaken (Allyson Argo McMaken), Clare Whitaker Smith, Caroline Love Smith and Isabel Burnham Smith; and her great-grandchildren Natalie Clare Barker, Henry James Barker, Benjamin Grant Barker, Isla Magnolia Sederberg, and Leif August Sederberg; in addition to many beloved nieces and nephews. Interment occurred Tuesday, August 25. A memorial service will be held when conditions allow. Donations in Jean’s honor may be made to charities that honor neglected or abused children and/or military veterans. ARRANGEMENTS BY WOLFE-BAYVIEW FUNERAL HOMES & CREMATORY, INC. 19698 GREENO RD FAIRHOPE, AL 36532 (251) 990-7775