From the Westford Wardsman, 3 May 1924

Mrs. Adeline Tower Burbeck, widow of the late John Burbeck, died at her home on the Littleton road, aged 86 years, 1 month, 12 days, being one of the oldest residents of the town. She was one of a family of nine girls of Eli and Mary (Fletcher) Tower and was born at the old Tower homestead on the Lowell road [#46], now owned by Frank C. Drew. Here her early, happy days were passed. Her early education and advanced studies were received in the old Stony Brook district school in the days when the little red schoolhouse was more universally known than Harvard college. Here, at this old Stony Brook school, her inherent common sense and jolly, genial good nature received the essentials to steer successfully her well-balanced inheritance. As a schoolmate nine years my senior she was far advanced in the three R's when your correspondent [Samuel L. Taylor] was stammering with consonants and vowels of the alphabet and failed then to see or comprehend then any such sub-divisions of the alphabet and he fails to see them in these latter years. This stupidity served to make other scholars seem so bright and precocious such as was Adeline Tower. A remarkably apt scholar and one of the most genial of playmates, whether it was play tag with or without a snowball, or skip rope with innocent hide and seek, she always played the games fair.

In her younger days she was a constant attendant at the Unitarian church with her father and mother and the rest of the large family, and it was a healthy old-fashioned New England sight to see the family carriage drive up to the church with the regularity of the return of the Sabbath day. This early developed respect for and observance of the Sabbath kept up all of her long life until the infirmities of age prevented constant attendance at church. The principles of love governed her whole life and her outlook and conduct towards the larger home of the world.

The deceased leaves two daughters, Mary and Grace Burbeck, of this town; three sons, Fred, of this town, and William, of Lowell, and Eli, of Chelmsford, and three grandchildren, Dorothy, Josephine and Elizabeth Burbeck, of Chelmsford.

The funeral was held on Tuesday afternoon, Rev. Frank B. Crandall of Ayer, conducting the service. The bearers were William, Fred and Eli Burbeck and Judge Frederick A. Fisher of Westford and Lowell. Interment was in the family lot in Fairview cemetery. There was a profusion of flowers from relatives and loving friends.

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Mrs. Adeline (Tower), widow of John Burbeck [who died June 17, 1915, Westford], passed away at her home last Sunday, aged eighty-six years. She is survived by two daughters, the Misses Mary and Grace Burbeck, of this son [sic]; three sons, Fred, of this town, Eli, of Chelmsford, and William, of Lowell; also several grandchildren.

The funeral was held from her home on Tuesday afternoon, services being in charge of Rev. Frank B. Crandall. The floral tributes were beautiful. The bearers were her three sons and a nephew, Hon. Frederick Fisher, of Lowell. Interment was in the family lot at Fairview cemetery.