Evelyn Burling

Evelyn Clarice Anita (Franklin) Burling departed this earth from her home in Fairfax, Oklahoma, and entered her eternal home in Heaven at 2:30PM on Tuesday, February 18, 2025. She was 95. 

The funeral will be held Monday, February 24, 2025, at 2PM at Hunsaker-Wooten Funeral Home Chapel with Reverend William Shupe of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Bartlesville, officiating. Burial will follow at Fairfax Cemetery. 

Evelyn Clarice Anita (Franklin) Burling was born in Chicago, Illinois, on April 21, 1929, and was the daughter of Augustus and Elsie Martha (Mensch) Franklin. In 1945, she moved with her parents and three siblings to Pawhuska, Oklahoma, in a 1936 Ford truck. She once said that their couch fit perfectly in the back and that's where she and her siblings rode from Illinois to Oklahoma without seatbelts. Evelyn graduated from Pawhuska High School on May 15, 1947. She worked as a switchboard operator for Pawhuska Telephone Company and then worked as a switchboard operator for Burbank Independent Telephone Exchange. Evelyn married Frank Gordon Burling on November 20, 1949, in Pawhuska, when they were both 20 years old. In 1952, she and Frank moved to Camas, Washington, where Frank found employment at Crown Zeller Bach Paper Mill. Later, they would make moves to Portland, Oregon; Billings, Montana; Spokane, Washington; and Dallas, Texas, for Frank's employment in the sales field. On February 14, 1964, they settled in Fairfax, where they would later purchase and establish a hog operation. Evelyn was also employed by the Roller Inn Motel in Fairfax where she cleaned rooms for 42 years until the age of 81 when she retired. In her spare time through the years, she would sew Christmas stockings for family and hundreds of traditional Osage ceremonial dance shirts, including some for the Osage Tribal Museum in Pawhuska. She had a lifelong passion for writing very descriptive letters, everyone could not wait to receive them in the mail and Evelyn was sad about their loss of popularity in her later years.  

Evelyn led a devout Christian life beginning with her baptism on May 5, 1929. From Kindergarten to 8th grade, she attended Bethel Evangelical Lutheran school, a two-room schoolhouse, in Westmont, Illinois, then attended Walther League. She was received into full Communion with Bethel Lutheran Church in Illinois by the rite of Confirmation on June 13, 1943. She has been a member of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Bartlesville since 1965 but truthfully established a relationship long before that with Redeemer Lutheran Church when Reverend Alvin Hornbostel, and his wife and children, would travel to Pawhuska on Sunday evenings to conduct worship services at Carpenter's Hall for seven families. 

She is preceded in death by her husband, Frank, as well as, her parents, and two siblings, Ronald Franklin and Catherine Juanita Avery. 

Evelyn is survived by her four children, Richard Burling and his wife, Debbie of Tulsa, John Burling and his wife Dee Ann of Oklahoma City, David Burling of Fairfax, and Linda Blanchard of Fairfax; her brother, Earl Franklin and his wife Betty of Tulsa; sister in law and loving friend, Wanda Franklin of Dallas; six grandchildren, Stacie McFarlin and her husband, Kris, Amy Burling, Melissa Black and her husband, Cary, Johnathan Burling and his wife, Alexis, Nicholas Burling, and Sonya Blanchard; five great-grandchildren, Blake Apfelbacher, Ainsley McFarlin, Emma Blanchard, Grace Burling, and Emmeline Black; also numerous nieces and nephews. 

Evelyn's family would like to thank the nurses, aides, clergy, and social workers from Humanity Hospice in Ponca City for their loving and supportive care. 

In lieu of flowers, charitable donations can be made to Evelyn's church in her name.

Redeemer Lutheran Church

3700 Woodland Rd.

Bartlesville, OK 74006