Los Angeles County
Biographies
TALMAGE
V. BURKE
The
first second-generation mayor of Alhambra, Talmage V. Burke, whose father was
mayor in 1944-1945, is presently serving his third consecutive term in
office. On his initial election, for the
1957-1958 term, Talmage Burke became the youngest
mayor in the city’s history. He has been
twice reelected, and as mayor has additionally served as a member of the Board
of Directors of the Los Angeles County Sanitation District and as a director of
the Alhambra Vehicle Parking District Number 1.
In February of 1961 Mr. Burke participated in the dedication of
Alhambra’s new million dollar, debt-free, City
Hall. In March of 1961 Mr. Burke and his
wife, at their own expense, traveled to Granada, Spain, bearing a Resolution of
Friendship from the City of Alhambra, and other gifts for presentation to the
City of Granada, which had been heretofore adopted as Alhambra’s “sister city”
in the United States, the first being Toledo.
This gesture was part of the official “people to people” program of the
President of the United States.
Talmage
Burke was born in Long Beach, California.
He is the son of Assemblyman Montivel A. Burke and the late Nellie Mae
(Christian) Burke. His sister is Mrs.
Norma Jean Evans of San Marino.
Mr.
Burke has resided in Alhambra since 1919, attending Central Elementary School
and graduating from Alhambra High School in 1935. He then attended the University of Southern
California, graduating cum laude with
a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1939.
Entering the USC School of Law the same year, he graduated with a
Bachelor of Laws degree in 1943 and a Master of Laws degree in 1945. While a student at the university, Mr. Burke
was a member of Phi Sigma Alpha, Tau Kappa Alpha, and the Blackstonian
Society, scholastic and honorary fraternities.
Mr.
Burke is a practicing attorney with offices in his own building at 100 North
First Street in Alhambra. He is a past
director, in 1944, of the Junior Barristers, Los Angeles County Bar
Association, and a past president, in 1954, of the San Gabriel Valley Bar
Association.
Appointed
to the Alhambra Board of Civil Service Trustees in 1946, Mr. Burke served until
his acceptance of an appointment by the Alhambra City Commission as Alhambra’s
first City Prosecutor in 1950. He
resigned from that post in 1952 to accept an appointment to fill an unexpired
term as a member of the Alhambra City Commission. He was subsequently elected to the City
Commission in 1952 and re-elected in 1954 and 1958, during that time serving on
the board of directors of the Alhambra Emergency Hospital and as a liaison
member on the City Planning Commission.
He also served on the Parks and Recreation Commission. Mr. Burke served as vice-mayor in 1955-1956.
Mr.
Burke’s organizational memberships and recognitions include: listing in the Alhambra Junior Chamber of
Commerce Honor Roll Award for Outstanding Young Men, 1949-1950; member of the
Alhambra High School Alumni Association and purchaser of the first brick for
the student activities room of the new Alhambra High School; president, in
1958, of the Alhambra Republican Club; and recipient, in 1961, of the Citizen
of the Month award, Alhambra Civitan Club. He is a past director of the Alhambra Junior
Chamber of Commerce, Alhambra Young Men’s Christian Association, and Granada
Masonic Lodge Number 608. In 1949 he was
chairman of the advance gifts division of the Alhambra United Fund. He is a member of the Alhambra Chamber of
Commerce and a member and scholarship chairman, in 1961, of the Alhambra Rotary
Club.
He
is married to Gertrude Grace Burke. They
have one daughter, Karen Mae, born on March 4, 1960, and a son, Montivel A.
Burke, II, born on March 28, 1962.
Mr.
Burke’s hobbies are travel and photography.
He has given over eighty public showings of his pictures of Russia and
the Iron Curtain countries, and has exhibited his films on “Granada—Sister
City.”
Transcribed
by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Historical Volume &
Reference Works Including Alhambra, Monterey Park, Rosemead, San Gabriel &
Temple City, by Robert P. Studer, Pages 357-360,
Historical Publ., Los Angeles, California.
1962.
© 2012 V.
Gerald Iaquinta.
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