MARY A. BURGESS   

Mary A. Burgess and Michael Burgess

(photo: Sue Lusk)

     Mary A. Burgess was born in San Bernardino, California, the daughter of an attorney and justice of the peace, Russell A. Wickizer, and (Wilma) Evelyn Swisher.  She spent her early life at Crestline in the San Bernardino Mountains, where she kept her own horse and spent her summers riding in the foothills and exploring the back byways.  Later she settled with her parents on a small ranch in Live Oak Canyon near Redlands, California, and graduated from Redlands High School.

     After marrying and raising two children, Louise and Richard, she returned to school to obtain her B.A. in history and English literature at California State University, San Bernardino.  There she met her second husband, Michael Burgess, whom she married in 1976.  She helped establish Borgo Press with him during this same period.

     Her genealogical research into the Wickizer and Campbell families, reflecting two sides of her family tree, have occupied her interest for many years; publication of the first edition of The Wickizer Annals in 1983 resulted in much favorable comment, and has proved the basis for all later research on this family.  She is currently working on a vastly expanded second edition of the Wickizer book, as well as the first edition of The Campbell Chronicles.  She has already edited and published Across the Wide Missouri, a diary compiled in the 1820s by James Brown Campbell, one of her great-uncles many times removed; a new printing of this volume will be available from Wildside Press in 2004.

     She has also done extensive editorial work and research writing for Borgo Press, the Gale Group, and several other firms.

 Email Mary

BOOKS