Kern County Obituaries

Margaret Baxter Burch

Submitted by Don Stowell; 13 Feb 2008

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Source Unknown; Date Unknown

Margaret Baxter Burch, born August 24, 1910 in Denver Colorado, passed away in 
Pasadena, California on February 10, 2000, nearly fourteen years to the day after 
the burial of her husband, Gardner Mitchell Burch. She will be deeply missed by 
her son, Loren Burch of Cantil and her daughter Carol Burch Senour of Newport 
Beach.
Margaret Baxter's family moved to Los Angeles in 1914 and founded the City 
Business Directory. In 1929 while a student attending UCLA, her father Sam Baxter 
purchased 120 acres of Cantil land, sight unseen, from an auction notice in the 
LA Times. After bidding $50, her father found that he was the only bidder, and 
one Sunday loaded up his family in an old 1924 Cadillac Sedan and drove up the 
long dusty roads through Antelope Valley to see what he bought. They all fell in 
love with the desert, and Margaret and her parents spent the next ten years 
developing the Cantil property on weekend visits. Margaret and her college 
girlfriends made trips up to Red Rock Canyon in an old Model T Ford to gather 
rocks for the fireplace she built as the centerpiece of the main ranch house, 
which still stands today.
Margaret was a woman of many interests. She was the first woman to take wood shop 
on the newly established campus of UCLA in the 1920's. In what may seem like a 
gutsy move today, in 1935 Margaret traveled with one of her college friends by 
boat to China and the Far East, and later with her husband, visited Alaska, 
Europe and Africa. At age 82, Margaret took an around the world tour, retracing 
some of her steps to countries she visited as a young woman.
Upon the death of her father in 1941, Margaret took over the operation and 
management of the City Business Directory until she met and married Gardner Burch 
in 1944 when, having a degree in graphic arts, he took over the production end of 
the business.
In Pasadena, Margaret taught extensive crafts classes for young people during 
summer sessions at the church the family attended in Arcadia during the 1950's. 
Although she was not particularly interested in what was going on downstairs, 
she "religiously" managed the Sunday School attendance books on the second floor, 
while her husband sang in the church choir one floor below. Margaret was always 
keenly interested in conservative politics, and bookkeeping, and her bookkeeping 
experience led her to some modest stock market trading successes in the 1950's 
which she did from her desk at home. She was a woman ahead of her time. Her 
children Loren and Carol credit her with instilling in them good business sense 
and encouraged their pursuit of self-employment.
Throughout the 1960's, Margaret and Gardner led their children back to their 
earlier days of weekend visits to the retreat in Cantil. In 1966, Loren, then 21 
and graduating from college, liked it so well he moved there and began a farming 
operation. This was the beginning of his stay as a 35-year resident of the High 
Desert, first growing alfalfa, then growing antique cars.
Margaret and Gardner were inspired to enter the antique business as a result of 
Loren's enthusiasm of antique cars. In 1964, they opened an antique store on 
Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, and after their retirement from the City Business 
Directory in the early 1970's, they developed a summer antique store on their 
vacation property in Somers, Montana near Flathead Lake. They spent their 
remaining years together operating the antique store in Pasadena during their 
winter months, and traveling to their Montana store during the summer.
Services for Margaret Burch were held at Forest Lawn in Glendale, CA on February 
16,2000.