Martha Jean Burris Dwyer

Martha Jean Burris Dwyer, 78, passed away unexpectedly following a sudden massive bacterial buildup resulting from a chronic medical condition on Monday, March 9, 2021. After CPR administered by EMS personnel on her bedroom floor could not revive her, and following thirty hours of valiant efforts by the dedicated ICU personnel of Thomas Hospital in Fairhope, AL, she was finally let go and set free to continue on her spiritual journey. Martha and her husband, Edward K Dwyer (Ed), moved from Metairie, LA to Fairhope, and lived there happily for eighteen years following her retirement from LSU AgCenter’s Louisiana Cooperative Extension Service (LCES), where she had been employed for the previous twenty-seven years. Relatives and friends are invited to attend funeral services for Martha at the Wolfe-Bayview Funeral Home,19698 Greeno Road (Hwy 98) in Fairhope. beginning at 2:30 P.M. on Friday March 19th starting with an hour of remembrance and visitation, followed by a service to be conducted in the adjoining chapel by the Reverend Ontonio Christie of the Fairhope United Methodist Church. Martha will be buried with a graveside dismissal service the following afternoon (Saturday March 20th) at Ellis Cemetery in Franklinton, LA in the Burris family plot, with Crain Funeral Home in Franklinton in charge of the arrangements. Martha was born on October 6, 1942 in a small hospital a few miles over the Mississippi state line from the Franklinton, LA hometown of both her parents, Roy Lee Burris and Wilda Breland Burris who, along with her brother Roy Lee Burris II, predeceased her. As a child Martha grew up in Ponchatoula, LA, where her LSU graduate parents, were school teachers and her father also later owned and operated a dry-cleaning business. Living in Ponchatoula in her formative years, Martha spent Sundays and Summers in Franklinton with her many close-knit Burris cousins. She loved dancing to 45 records at home and dancing and then “showing her stuff for real” at record hops or at the beach on Saturday nights. Martha attended public elementary and secondary schools there, graduating from Ponchatoula High School in 1960, and immediately began Summer Session classes at Southeastern Louisiana College (now SLU), where she was a member of Kappa Rho sorority. Martha eventually graduated SLC in 1966 with a B.S. in English-Education, following her studies being interrupted upon her first marriage, to her high school and college steady, Lawrence J. Miller, his commissioning as a naval officer and her accompanying him while assigned on Guantanamo Bay at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Following his military tour of duty, and with Martha’s undergraduate degree now in hand, they resided for a time in Steuben County, NY where Martha was employed as a Four-H Agent at nearby Cornell University’s Cooperative Extension Service in Ithaca. Some years later they returned South to Moss Point, MS and then to New Orleans where, after briefly working in temporary clerical jobs, Martha eventually secured her dream job: employment with the LSU AgCenter. There, she was assigned to the Jefferson Parish Office of the LCES, initially as a 4-H Agent and Homemaker’s Club advisor and then to more and varied additional assignments including as a food safety advisor, notably to restaurants throughout the region, working in cooperation with the Louisiana Restaurant, as an energy advisor, and some years later had an early morning weekly radio show, where she interviewed an assortment of the big gun County Agents and specialists administered from Knapp Hall on the main campus. During this time Martha commuted from the Jefferson Parish office to the Baton Rouge campus a couple of evenings a week and on weekends to secure her M.S. degree in Extension Education in 1979; writing her Master’s thesis titled “Evaluation of the Residential Energy Conservation Educational Program”. A highlight of her time as an energy conservation agent was being called in to coordinate a team that finally resolved the long-standing puzzle of why the famous Drago’s Restaurant in Metairie had not been able to keep its restaurant and bar area air conditioned properly, despite adequate capacity in its cooling machinery. After a brief survey of the machinery and the fans and water in the attic, the simple problem was identified quickly: they had been running the attic fans backwards, Old Mr. Drago Cvitanovich was beside himself with compliments on their efficient and expert talents in solving this huge and costly energy drain. Later, after becoming the new LCES Parish Chair, Martha then had to meet regularly with the Jefferson Parish President’s Office, State Representatives and Council Members, often customers of Drago’s, to secure approval of the Parish’s share in the funding of her Jefferson office’s budget, a job now made smoother by the Drago’s problem solving in their favorite lunching venue. During the mid- ‘80s, Martha’s first marriage having by then ended, her voracious appetite for and quest of knowledge led her to independently pursue non-Extension Service related courses on Ericksonian Hypnotherapy, Neuro Linguistic Programming, and other newly discovered mind-body enhancing techniques, in the process becoming NLP certified, and using those techniques in conjunction with hypnosis to enhance mind-body harmony during critical life events. This period was indicative of the searcher Martha had now become, unfulfilled in both her spiritual and in her personal and interpersonal quests. Martha’s life-long love of dancing and music led her to take up Cajun-dancing lessons, shortly after the 1984 World’s Fair in New Orleans, where Cajun bands could be found playing nightly. Eventually this led her to various music halls featuring Cajun Bands, such as the famous Tipitina’s on the foot of Napoleon Avenue in Uptown New Orleans where Sunday late afternoon Cajun bands played with dancing by mainly middle-aged folks, many single. There, by chance, one of Martha’s many weekly dancing partners was her future husband Ed, then another wandering soul who lived just down the street from Tipitina’s and had been drawn there late one Sunday afternoon, while hearing through an open window in his home the infectious and enchanting melodies being played. Though they were but new friends and part-time dancing partners, Martha by then knew, if nothing else about him, how much Ed loved LSU football--and she had season tickets through her LSU employment, she asked him if he would like to attend the Miami game with her the following week. Though it was a cold and wet LSU loss and it did rain that night—all night-- in Tiger Stadium, sparks flew nonetheless, as Martha and Ed stayed to the bitter end to see if LSU could at least score a point. One of only hundreds remaining in the cavernous stands at the end of the boring game that horribly cold and wet evening, they were rewarded by that late shutout averting field goal, as they remained huddled together tight under a single shared umbrella, their hips joined then and for the next thirty-three years in love and life, until last Monday afternoon. RIP Martha B Survived by her three step-children, Bonnie K Dwyer of Boston, E. Keith Dwyer, III and Ryan Patrick Dwyer (Katy Fain) of Kenner, LA, and three step-grandchildren, Aisling Maher and Cian Healy, both of Boston, and Myles Dwyer of Kenner. The family would like to thank the EMS crew of Fairhope and its Volunteer Fire Dept personnel who, along with the ER and ICU doctors, nurses, and staff, especially Stephanie, all worked so assiduously in their attempts to revive Martha, which if achieved could only have been considered a medical miracle. Thanks to all of Martha’s friends and relatives, here on the Eastern Shore, who have been so welcoming, kind and giving of their love and deep friendship for her during our wonderful almost eighteen years here, and for the sympathies and kindness you have shown to Ed. And especially to Martha’s cousins Ann Warner and Jesse Burris, and to her dear friend Anne Cassity, who have been so helpful in assisting with funeral arrangements in Fairhope and Franklinton. And to Martha’s dear friend Vera Pugh, who was so much more than a housekeeper and became her right arm and confidante during her past three years of declining health. Donations in memory of Martha may be made to the The LSU Foundation, in Baton Rouge@ (225) 578-3811 or on the Web@contactLSUfoundation.Org