Frances E. Burns

Frances E. Burns (May 2, 1866 – November 19, 1937) was an American social leader and business woman.

[1] She was the first woman executive of an American fraternal congress that was national in its scope.

[2] Frances E. Sanford was born on a farm 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from Ionia, Michigan,[2] on May 2, 1866.

Her father had been a merchant in Chicago before moving to the Ionia farm, where she was the second youngest child.

She was fond of home talent theatricals and usually managed to land the role of leading heroine.

[3] Burns became an endowment member of the Great Hive Ladies of the Maccabees for Michigan on October 17, 1892.

At the end of her two-year term, Burns was elected Great Commander.

Although she was at that time an eloquent and forcible speaker, there is no information to the effect that she took any active part in the discussions; it appears she was still the student-observer.

She found herself and her society involved in a snarl which had grown out of the differences arising between the Supreme Tent and the Great Camp of Michigan.

At the 1905 session, she participated in the joint meetings of the conference committees and joined in the report submitted to the Congress.

Thus, she became the first woman executive of an American fraternal congress that was national in its scope.

[2] She developed not only into one of the stalwart leaders of fraternalism, but also one of the foremost American businesswomen.

It can be assumed that she was uninformed upon that important side of her society, because there were then no fraternal executives who were thoroughly vested in life insurance matters.

While in Washington, D.C., attending the burial of America's Unknown Soldier, she suffered a serious nervous breakdown.

[3][4] The Frances E. Burns Maccabee Home for Aged Women, in Alma, Michigan, was named in her honor.