I’ve written many times about my aunt, Helen Diana Burgess. Coincidentally, I wrote a significant piece about her for Week 9 of the 2022 52 Ancestors Challenge. Sadly, she left us too soon, at age 48. Despite the short period of time I had her in my life, Aunt Diana made an incredible impact on me. Even though she died 23 years ago, it is rare for a day to go by in which I do not think of her. Whether it’s a favourite book, a memento, or piece of art, there is always something that brings back fond memories of my aunt. I am frequently sharing stories of her with my wife and children.
My Aunt Diana and me.
Moreover, as an avid genealogist, I frequently see queries on social media asking about paper preservation and proper storage of family heirlooms. Diana was a leading conservation scientist, whose expertise included paper, so these queries always remind me of her. I wrote about this last year in Week 40, “Preservation”.
Science!!
Unfortunately, in the early 1990s, when she was at the height of her career, Diana developed lupus. She was a senior conservation scientist at the Canadian Conservation Institute at the time, but was forced into early retirement by the effects of the disease in 1998. Aunt Diana passed away a year later. At the annual conference of the Western Association for Art Conservation following her death, several of the presentations were dedicated to her memory.
Diana was also godmother to one of my brothers.
Many of my interests that Aunt Diana nurtured in me I have passed on to our children. Some of the most treasured books I have from my childhood were gifts from her. I still have those books and my kids have read and re-read them voraciously. While Diana could not have known it, not only did she foster my development as a person, but that of my kids as well.
A new month brings a new theme for the 52 Ancestors Challenge, “Women”. The first week of the month shares that theme. It took a fraction of a second for me to think of who I wanted to write about this week.
I often see questions posed in genealogy forums about the preservation of records. Every time I see one, it reminds me of my Aunt Diana. The world knew her as Helen Burgess, a scientist and a leading expert on paper preservation, but with family she went by her middle name because she shared her first name with my grandmother. While Aunt Diana passed away more over 20 years ago – not yet even 50 years old – I can still find her work is cited in modern papers.
Helen Diana Burgess, B.Sc., M.Sc., M.A.C. (1951 – 1999)
Me with my Aunt Diana. My grandparents’ house is in the background. I have no idea why we were in the neighbour’s yard.
I idolized my Aunt Diana when I was a kid. At the time, she was an undergraduate student at the University of Lethbridge. She was the only person I knew in university at the time. However, to me, her academic pursuits and later career were only part of her identity. I modeled a lot of my behaviour after her, from sharing her interests to developing a love of some of her favourite foods.
Aunt Diana excelled at nurturing children’s intellect without any us even realizing it. Many of my favourite gifts as a kid came from her, including many books. I still have a lot of them. While Aunt Diana read all kinds of books, her favourite genre was mystery novels. She had walls of bookshelves filled with them, and a few of the books she gave me were in that vein. These included the Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series, about three boy detectives, which were everything boring old Hardy Boys books were not. I’ve passed those on to my sons. She also gave me a copy of L.R. Wright’s award-winning novel, The Suspect. That book kind of blew my mind, because it was a murder mystery set in Sechelt, Canada not far from where I lived, and not Sometown USA.
Aunt Diana also instilled in me her love of art. She loved to draw and paint. When I turned ten, she gave me a set of oil paints, complete with canvases, brushes, turpentine, and linseed oil. I often received postcards from her from around the world, as her work took her to some of the greatest museums of the world. I still have every one of those postcards. I was lucky enough to visit a few museums with her. It was something to have her as my own personal tour guide and art expert.
Diana graduating from the University of Lethbridge, 1973
Aunt Diana obtained a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in chemistry in 1973. Diana followed this with a Masters of Science in bio-organic chemistry from U.B.C. in 1977 and a Master of Conservation from Queen’s in 1979. Her thesis at Queen’s was about the “degradation of cellulose during conservation bleaching treatments”. To mark its 40th anniversary, the Queen’s Art Conservation Program conducted an interview series regarding leaders in conservation with a link to the school. One of the sets of interviews was about my aunt, conducted with her friends and colleagues.
Some of my Aunt Diana’s books, including her two masters theses, which now sit on my mother’s bookshelf. After getting an “A” in Grade 12 chemistry, I could almost understand the title of her U.B.C. thesis.
Science!
In 1978, Aunt Diana started her career with the Canadian Conservation Institute in Ottawa. By the time she took early retirement in 1998 due to her health, Aunt Diana was a Senior Conservation Scientist. She specialized in the conservation of paper artifacts, but she also worked with other materials. Diana was an expert in conservation bleaching, the use of enzymes, deacidification, and cellulose degradation analysis.
It was a big deal to me and my family when Aunt Diana was one of the scientists featured on an episode of The Nature of Things. The episode, “Turning to Dust“, was about the deteriorating paper in old books and their preservation.
On a more practical level, Aunt Diana would often give my mother tips about what household products – particularly bleach-based products – were worth it and which were rubbish. She also taught me decades ago about the perils of adhesive photo albums and the wonders of acid-free and archival paper products.
Of course, because Aunt Diana was a scientist who was at the top of her field, it always seemed normal to me that women could be scientists. Every time I see a query about preservation of genealogical records, it makes me wish I could ask her and reminds me how much I miss her.
With Aunt Diana back when I only had two siblings. She was my brother’s godmother. Her we are after the baptism.
A Deck of Ancestors 