Obituaries

Harry Earl Burden

March 19, 1935 - August 3, 2026

Services will be held on Tuesday, August 11, 2026 at Adams Funeral Home, 64 Broad Street, Woodstown, NJ 08098. There will be a visitation starting at 10 AM leading to the funeral service at 11 AM. Interment will follow the service at the Sharptown Church Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that donations be made in Harry’s memory to the Sharptown Church, 46 Auburn Road, Woodstown, NJ 08098 or to the Salem County Humane Society (please write “Dog Division” in the memo), PO Box 214, Carneys Point, NJ 08069. Please share memories and condolences at www.adamsfuneralhome.org.

Harry Earl Burden, age 91, of Sharptown, NJ passed away on August 3, 2026 at Christiana Hospital with his daughter by his side and into the arms of his Lord and Savior. Harry was born on March 19, 1935 in a one-room pickers cabin on Jill Brothers Farm in Pilesgrove, NJ. He is the son of Harry and Olive Burden, with three older sisters before him. There were many stories about how he was picked on by his older sisters, but they all plead the 5th.

Harry and his family moved to Church Street in Sharptown when he was five years old. He was affectionately nicknamed “Honey Boy” by his sister Geraldine. He told us it was because he is so sweet. Now that statement has been debated from time to time, along with the claim that Angel Food Cake was named after him.

As a child, he developed a great love of all animals, especially dogs. Harry started his education in the little white school house in Sharptown where he enjoyed playing football for the Black & Blue Sharptown Whales.

He later attended Woodstown High School where he played football as a receiver and backup quarterback. During his high school years, his best touchdown was scored off the field when the love of his life, Kathryn, moved in next door and tackled his heart. As Sharptown tradition would have it, if you found true love, you would carve your initials on a brick behind the Wesley Chapel Sharptown Church, where the brick still remains there today 73 years later, Harry proposed with a bar of soap on a car window on Mischief Night and they were married on the 4th of July 1954 at Sharptown Methodist Church.

Harry was very athletic and also enjoyed playing and watching baseball, basketball, roller and ice skating, swimming, bowling and tennis.

Harry and Kathryn bought his grandfather’s house on Church Street and started their family. He continued working his first job at Jill Brothers Farm Inc. along with his father, driving tractors and taking produce to the markets until he landed a job at the nationally famous Richman’s Ice Cream in Pilesgrove where he made 5,000 gallons of ice cream a day, working with many of his family members. Delicious frozen treats were a family thing. Harry had an incredible work ethic, most of the time he worked two jobs at the same time. Side jobs included pumping gas at the Cowtown and Hess stations and many years mowing the lawn and digging graves by hand in the Sharptown Methodist Cemetery. In his last phase of employment, he worked as custodian for the Oldmans Township School in Pedricktown.

After his retirement, he enjoyed working in his vegetable and flower gardens, going with friends and family to Wilmington Blue Rocks baseball games, trips to Ocean City (where he once swam out and saved a 15 year old boy who was drowning), watching many sports programs and comedies on TV, baking cookies using his grandfather’s recipes, listening to classic country and gospel music, enjoying his many pets throughout the years and making people laugh.

He had a great sense of humor and quick wit which made him fun to be around. Even in his last days, he had the hospital staff cracking up. He was a simple man and a straightforward, no nonsense, “calls it as he sees it” kind of guy. He loved God, his family, food and animals. He will be remembered by his devotion to his family, his extreme hard work and endurance, unbelievable strength and a heart full of laughter and love till the end.

Harry is survived by his children Robert Burden Sr. (Debra), his daughters Cynthia Bell (Sam) and Constance Sassi; his grandchildren Robert Burden Jr., Margie Gaunt (Christopher), Holly Fogg (Justin) and Christian Barbara (Adam); his great grandchildren Alyssa Fogg, Morgan Fogg, Kaylee Fogg, Autumn Burden and Benjamin Barbara; his Uncle Kenneth “Kenny” Burden; his sister Beatrice Snyder; and the family would like to express a special “Thank You” to his caregivers Jeff Cowan and Claudia Jones.

In addition to his parents, he was predeceased by his wife Kathryn L. Burden, his grandsons Ronald Burden, Daniel Burden and John Bell, his sisters Bernice Wright and Geraldine Beck and his son in law David Sassi.