Reverend Mary Catherine Burton was Fairhaven’s 32 nd minister.
She was born at Hammond, Indiana on May 7, 1932, the oldest
of three children born to Edmund Hope and Mary Lewis
Johnston. Reverend Burton’s father was a native of Glasgow,
Scotland and he worked as a clerk for the E. J. & E. Railway.
The 1940 Census finds the family living at 7448 Van Buren
Street in Hammond. Two years later, the family continued to
live in Hammond but now lived at 6519 Homan Street. In 1950,
Burton lived in a girls’ dormitory with 29 other individuals at
the Rockford College for Girls in Rockford, Illinois. Her future
husband, John Burton, was a laborer in that city and they
married in 1954 at Crown Point, Indiana. During the course of
their marriage Reverend and Mr. Burton had three children:
Bill, Nancy, and Susan.
It's not clear when Reverend and Mr. Burton moved to
Pennsylvania, but Reverend Burton’s first appointment for the
Western Pennsylvania United Methodist Conference was in
1975 as an Associate Pastor at the Smithfield United Methodist
Church. She was licensed to preach by the Methodist
Conference in 1975 and became a Deacon the same year. The
following year, Burton was appointed lead pastor at the
Smithfield Methodist Church where she stayed for fourteen
years. Reverend Burton was given full membership status in the
Methodist Conference in 1978 and was made an Elder.
In June 1980, Reverend Burton arrived at Fairhaven Church. She
was the second female pastor and she became the longest
serving minister in the church’s history, twenty years.
On May 24, 1981, Burton led the church’s congregation on the
occasion of its one-hundredth birthday. The centenary
celebration was a year-long series of events that Reverend
Burton orchestrated and involved many figures from the
church’s history.
In 1987, Burton organized a celebration to mark the 80th
anniversary of the church’s construction. It was decided that
the cupola on the bell tower should be restored and she began
a successful a fundraising campaign.
In 1991, during a picnic at Reverend Burton’s house, a merger
of the two churches Fairhaven Church and the Mount
Washington United Methodist Church was discussed. In January
1992, both churches voted on the question and the merger was
approved and became effective January 1, 1994.
In March 1993, a major drama began for Fairhaven Church. This
threat was perhaps the second greatest crisis in the church’s
history after PennDOT's proposed expansion of Route 51 in
1957. The drama was with the church’s neighbor, Leopardi
Auto Sales.
On June 30, 1992, the building between Leopardi and Fairhaven
Church, formerly Doctor Heath’s office, was purchased by
Leopardi. In February 1993, without warning, the building was
torn down and construction of a new automobile showroom
was begun. Usually, public hearings would have been held, but
were not.
Owner, Patrick Leopardi, approached Reverend Burton one
Sunday morning and said, “How long do you people intend to
remain in business?” Burton’s response was, “Forever!”
Of particular concern for Fairhaven Church was the fact that the
new automobile showroom encroached seven feet onto an
eighty-six-year-old, sixteen-foot easement that belonged to the
church. The easement between the two buildings allowed
space for emergency egress and building maintenance. The
foundation of Leopardi’s new showroom had been poured and
was nine feet away from the church’s exterior southern wall.
The second-floor fire escape was unusable.
Fairhaven Church’s Administrative Council voted 27-1 to take
legal action. A phone call was made to Pittsburgh City
Councilmember, Jack Wagner. Wagner directed the city
planning commission to issue a stop-work order to Leopardi
until a zoning hearing was convened. A zoning hearing was held
on March 11, 1993. Fairhaven Church and the Overbrook
Community were well represented at the hearing. The Zoning
Board decided that a negotiated meeting should be held
between the Pittsburgh Planning Commission, Fairhaven
Church, Leopardi Auto Sales, and the Underwood Street
neighbors on March 22, 1993. A successful agreement was
reached.
One crisis had been successfully averted but, as one can
imagine, the sale of the building was an ordeal. An agreement
was entered into with Property Development Associates of
Carnegie to buy the church for $150,000 and convert it into a
senior citizen apartment complex.
One of the long-standing goals of Fairhaven Church, as far back
as 1927 was to build an addition to the church. The use of
Sanders’ House for a Sunday School classes had temporarily
filled the void, but the Board of Trustees decided that the
money from the Mount Washington Church sale should be
used for this purpose. The addition could be utilized as an
outreach tool to the community.
In 1999, the church’s struggles with Leopardi over the last
decade had amplified the Trustees’ concerns about the future
of the church building, and, in order to safeguard it from future
expansion-minded parties, an attempt was made to designate
the church building as a state historic landmark. That request
was denied but a successful petition to the Pittsburgh City
Council for historic status was accepted ten years later.
On March 19, 2000, a groundbreaking service was held for the
new church addition. Construction was completed six months
later. The addition was dedicated on September 17, 2000 and
christened Burton Hall, in honor of Reverend Burton. It was the
crowning achievement of Burton’s many accomplishments at
the church.
After her many triumphs at Fairhaven Church, Reverend
Burton decided to retire in 2001. She continued to live in
Pittsburgh until the death of her husband in 2004 after which
she moved to Centennial, Colorado to be closer to her children.
Reverend Burton died at the age of 78 on March 9, 2011. Her
funeral was held March 31, 6:30 PM at St. Andrew United
Methodist Church. Her ashes were interred at the Saint Andrew
United Methodist Church Columbarium in Douglas County, Colorado.
