Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1909, she was the only daughter of William Burgoyne and Margaret Doyle Burgoyne. She had two older brothers, Bert and Everett.
When she was still a small child her father, a pharmacist, moved the family to Shreveport and later to Monroe, where he opened the Monroe Wholesale Drug Company.
After graduating as valedictorian from St Matthew's High School in Monroe, she worked in her father's company, but not before first celebrating her high school graduation by flying to California to visit an aunt. To prepare her for that flight, the founder and president of Delta Air Lines, which had begun as a crop-dusting service out of Monroe, took her up for a short flight outside town.
A few years later, as she neared the age of 30, she and three girlfriends vacationed in Cuba, sailing out of and returning to New Orleans.
Marrying Shreveport attorney Frank O. Looney, she soon moved back to Shreveport, where the couple raised four children. During those years, she served in numerous volunteer capacities -- in the St John's Catholic Church Queen's Workers, the Third Order of St. Francis, in parents clubs at St John's Elementary School and at St John's/Jesuit High School, in scouting, and in the Schumpert Medical Center Pink Ladies program and gift shop, to name a few.
After her husband's death, she lived briefly at home by herself and then, at the age of 91, moved to New Orleans' Lambeth House, where she was well-known for violating a rule that prohibited residents from pushing other residents in their wheel chairs, and where she led a fire-alarm evacuation of her floormates through darkened halls and down three flights of darkened stairs.
She left New Orleans at the age of 95, one day ahead of Hurricane Katrina, and never would return. Instead, after a week in motel rooms, she moved to The Orchard retirement community in Warsaw, Va., with three days' worth of clothes, an oxygen machine, a wheelchair and no furniture. She became well known there as The Refugee from Hurricane Katrina and as the lady who distributed Mardi Gras beads to her fellow residents. She also became a familiar face at St Timothy's Catholic Church in nearby Tappahannock.
Having spent her life in service to others as a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, an aunt, a grandmother, a mother-in-law and a friend, chauffeuring, homemaking, baking and sitting beside sickbeds, until she finally outlived her ability to accomplish any of those tasks. She could, though, still learn to knit stocking caps well enough to win a blue ribbon at the local county fair and assist with the business paperwork at the office of a Warsaw law firm. And to the end, she loved her sweets. As one of her granddaughters said, her favorite meal was always dessert.
When she was still a small child her father, a pharmacist, moved the family to Shreveport and later to Monroe, where he opened the Monroe Wholesale Drug Company.
After graduating as valedictorian from St Matthew's High School in Monroe, she worked in her father's company, but not before first celebrating her high school graduation by flying to California to visit an aunt. To prepare her for that flight, the founder and president of Delta Air Lines, which had begun as a crop-dusting service out of Monroe, took her up for a short flight outside town.
A few years later, as she neared the age of 30, she and three girlfriends vacationed in Cuba, sailing out of and returning to New Orleans.
Marrying Shreveport attorney Frank O. Looney, she soon moved back to Shreveport, where the couple raised four children. During those years, she served in numerous volunteer capacities -- in the St John's Catholic Church Queen's Workers, the Third Order of St. Francis, in parents clubs at St John's Elementary School and at St John's/Jesuit High School, in scouting, and in the Schumpert Medical Center Pink Ladies program and gift shop, to name a few.
After her husband's death, she lived briefly at home by herself and then, at the age of 91, moved to New Orleans' Lambeth House, where she was well-known for violating a rule that prohibited residents from pushing other residents in their wheel chairs, and where she led a fire-alarm evacuation of her floormates through darkened halls and down three flights of darkened stairs.
She left New Orleans at the age of 95, one day ahead of Hurricane Katrina, and never would return. Instead, after a week in motel rooms, she moved to The Orchard retirement community in Warsaw, Va., with three days' worth of clothes, an oxygen machine, a wheelchair and no furniture. She became well known there as The Refugee from Hurricane Katrina and as the lady who distributed Mardi Gras beads to her fellow residents. She also became a familiar face at St Timothy's Catholic Church in nearby Tappahannock.
Having spent her life in service to others as a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, an aunt, a grandmother, a mother-in-law and a friend, chauffeuring, homemaking, baking and sitting beside sickbeds, until she finally outlived her ability to accomplish any of those tasks. She could, though, still learn to knit stocking caps well enough to win a blue ribbon at the local county fair and assist with the business paperwork at the office of a Warsaw law firm. And to the end, she loved her sweets. As one of her granddaughters said, her favorite meal was always dessert.
Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1909, she was the only daughter of William Burgoyne and Margaret Doyle Burgoyne. She had two older brothers, Bert and Everett.
When she was still a small child her father, a pharmacist, moved the family to Shreveport and later to Monroe, where he opened the Monroe Wholesale Drug Company.
After graduating as valedictorian from St Matthew's High School in Monroe, she worked in her father's company, but not before first celebrating her high school graduation by flying to California to visit an aunt. To prepare her for that flight, the founder and president of Delta Air Lines, which had begun as a crop-dusting service out of Monroe, took her up for a short flight outside town.
A few years later, as she neared the age of 30, she and three girlfriends vacationed in Cuba, sailing out of and returning to New Orleans.
Marrying Shreveport attorney Frank O. Looney, she soon moved back to Shreveport, where the couple raised four children. During those years, she served in numerous volunteer capacities -- in the St John's Catholic Church Queen's Workers, the Third Order of St. Francis, in parents clubs at St John's Elementary School and at St John's/Jesuit High School, in scouting, and in the Schumpert Medical Center Pink Ladies program and gift shop, to name a few.
After her husband's death, she lived briefly at home by herself and then, at the age of 91, moved to New Orleans' Lambeth House, where she was well-known for violating a rule that prohibited residents from pushing other residents in their wheel chairs, and where she led a fire-alarm evacuation of her floormates through darkened halls and down three flights of darkened stairs.
She left New Orleans at the age of 95, one day ahead of Hurricane Katrina, and never would return. Instead, after a week in motel rooms, she moved to The Orchard retirement community in Warsaw, Va., with three days' worth of clothes, an oxygen machine, a wheelchair and no furniture. She became well known there as The Refugee from Hurricane Katrina and as the lady who distributed Mardi Gras beads to her fellow residents. She also became a familiar face at St Timothy's Catholic Church in nearby Tappahannock.
Having spent her life in service to others as a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, an aunt, a grandmother, a mother-in-law and a friend, chauffeuring, homemaking, baking and sitting beside sickbeds, until she finally outlived her ability to accomplish any of those tasks. She could, though, still learn to knit stocking caps well enough to win a blue ribbon at the local county fair and assist with the business paperwork at the office of a Warsaw law firm. And to the end, she loved her sweets. As one of her granddaughters said, her favorite meal was always dessert.
When she was still a small child her father, a pharmacist, moved the family to Shreveport and later to Monroe, where he opened the Monroe Wholesale Drug Company.
After graduating as valedictorian from St Matthew's High School in Monroe, she worked in her father's company, but not before first celebrating her high school graduation by flying to California to visit an aunt. To prepare her for that flight, the founder and president of Delta Air Lines, which had begun as a crop-dusting service out of Monroe, took her up for a short flight outside town.
A few years later, as she neared the age of 30, she and three girlfriends vacationed in Cuba, sailing out of and returning to New Orleans.
Marrying Shreveport attorney Frank O. Looney, she soon moved back to Shreveport, where the couple raised four children. During those years, she served in numerous volunteer capacities -- in the St John's Catholic Church Queen's Workers, the Third Order of St. Francis, in parents clubs at St John's Elementary School and at St John's/Jesuit High School, in scouting, and in the Schumpert Medical Center Pink Ladies program and gift shop, to name a few.
After her husband's death, she lived briefly at home by herself and then, at the age of 91, moved to New Orleans' Lambeth House, where she was well-known for violating a rule that prohibited residents from pushing other residents in their wheel chairs, and where she led a fire-alarm evacuation of her floormates through darkened halls and down three flights of darkened stairs.
She left New Orleans at the age of 95, one day ahead of Hurricane Katrina, and never would return. Instead, after a week in motel rooms, she moved to The Orchard retirement community in Warsaw, Va., with three days' worth of clothes, an oxygen machine, a wheelchair and no furniture. She became well known there as The Refugee from Hurricane Katrina and as the lady who distributed Mardi Gras beads to her fellow residents. She also became a familiar face at St Timothy's Catholic Church in nearby Tappahannock.
Having spent her life in service to others as a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, an aunt, a grandmother, a mother-in-law and a friend, chauffeuring, homemaking, baking and sitting beside sickbeds, until she finally outlived her ability to accomplish any of those tasks. She could, though, still learn to knit stocking caps well enough to win a blue ribbon at the local county fair and assist with the business paperwork at the office of a Warsaw law firm. And to the end, she loved her sweets. As one of her granddaughters said, her favorite meal was always dessert.
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