Edith Wise Burpee, a long-time resident of Rye, died peacefully on Dec. 15, 2025, at her house on the St. Lawrence River in Cape Vincent, N.Y. She was known to friends and family as “Qxzy,” a nickname supposedly coined by her Scrabble-loving father.
Edith was born on Nov. 26, 1926, in Spuyten Duyvil, N.Y., the youngest of four children. After attending several schools, she graduated from the Brearley School in New York City in 1944.
Following Brearley, Edith completed a year-long course at the Katharine Gibbs School and worked at Memorial Sloan Kettering. She moved to Houston to work at the MD Anderson Hospital and met George (Sandy) Burpee of Bronxville, N.Y., who was working in San Antonio at the time.
Edith and Sandy married on Aug. 27, 1955. They bought their house on Guion Road in Rye in early 1957 and welcomed five children.
Edith worked part-time as a medical transcriptionist at Greenwich Hospital and helped establish the hospital’s home care program.
Life changed dramatically for the family in November 1967 when Edith lost her sight following a streptococcus infection. After nine weeks in the hospital, she returned home and resumed her household tasks and learned Braille.
Edith enrolled in the Seeing Eye in April 1968 and arrived back in Rye with the first of her six Seeing Eye dogs. Edith and her dogs became a daily fixture on the streets of Rye. She was often joined by her friend Carole Worthington, who also had a guide dog. Edith was frequently invited to speak to school and community groups about her experiences, which she dubbed, “The Joys of Blindness.”
Edith was active in the Midland PTO, Christ’s Church, and led a Girl Scout troop for several years. She was keenly involved in the community and regularly attended school board and city council meetings, school concerts, and talks on current events and foreign policy, always with a knitting project to occupy her hands.
In the late 1970s, she was tapped by the Rye Youth Council to run the Rye Youth Employment Service (RYES), a volunteer post she held for almost a decade. The connections she made between students and employers built skills and resulted in many long-term friendships and opportunities. According to a Gannett article, the RYES placed 800 students in jobs from 1982 to 1983.
After the death of Sandy in 1995, Edith continued travelling to Cape Vincent during the summers. There, she tended to her extensive garden of perennials, flowering shrubs, herbs, and vegetables. She loved swimming, sailing, and canoeing in the river as well as riding the tandem bicycle with friends and family and walking with her dog to the village or the lighthouse.
Edith was active in the local improvement league and enjoyed meeting with friends to play bridge. In spite of diminishing hearing, Edith remained connected to the world via a headset radio tuned to a variety of news, talk, and gardening programs.
Edith leaves her children, Eva, of Rye; Louise (Randy Basinger), of Irmo, S.C., Elizabeth, of Knoxville, Tenn.; George (Jocelyn Check) and Didi (Tom Beierle), both of Seattle; six grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; and her companion dog, Patty.
A memorial service will be held at a later date.
In lieu of flowers, the family welcomes donations to Hospice of Jefferson County, N.Y., or a charity of your choice.
