Obituary of Constance A. Buskirk

Constance Adams Buskirk, age 90 of Pennsville has died on June 16th at Friends Village in Woodstown. Connie was born in Somer's Point, New Jersey and was the second daughter of Joseph Earl Adams and Rose "Dolly" Naylor Adams. As a lover of historical fiction, Connie conveyed her life story with just a bit of drama. Connie recalled the uncertainly of the Great Depression brought her family as a young child, the economic decline causing her father to lose the house in Somer's Point and forcing the family to move to Pennsville when she was nine years pld. The Adams family ultimately settled into a house on Pennsville's Main Street. She remembered the hardships of WW2 but also held on to magical memories of growing up just a block from Riverview Beach Park, where she skated regularly in park's roller skating rink and flipped burgers for a time in one one the park's hamburger stands. At Salem High the yearbook remembered her shyness and described her as a"neat, petite brunette," qualities that attracted Deepwater's Wallace Buskirk Jr. to ask her sister Rosemarie's boyfriend (and future husband Bob Slopey) to fix him up with Connie for a double date. After a first date at Salem's Texas Weiner and a second date to Camden to see "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" their romance quickly heated up. When a proposal came soon after, some suspected that the quick engagement was prompted by something other than young love. But after their marriage in 1950 and Wally's stint serving in the Army, it would be six years before the couple would begin a family. Connie enjoyed her time working as a secretary at Dupont's Chamber's Work, but quit when she entered motherhood in 1956 with the first of their four children, Wallace Scott the 3rd. Over nine years Wally and Connie became parents to four children, with Wallace Scott followed by Terri Lynn Rhodes, Cynthia Marie Redefer and Daniel Earl Buskirk. The family resided in a particularly tight-knit neighborhood in Pennsville's "Central Park" section, a neighborhood that frequently traveled, worked and played together. As a mother, Connie was a tireless supporter of her husband's many activities, an unswerving supplier of three meals a day/seven days a week for the six members of the household, while conquering all laundry, book-keeping and housekeeping that was expected of a 20th century mother and housewife. She carried out these duties with an abundance of humility, grace, and humor, with even the most justifiable of complaints rarely heard. Outside of the epic task of raising four children, she still found time to enjoy the afternoon soap operas, kept up a steady reading habit and volunteered for years at the Salem Hospital and with her husband for Meals on Wheels. Wally's job at Dupont allowed him to occasionally take his wife on his travels, taking memorable tours of Australia, Europe and South America, and corresponding with many of the people she met for decades. If you knew Connie for a while, she would tell you the story of how she and Wally ended up having drinks in the airport lounge with the Hollywood stars Jill St. John and Robert Wagner. Upon Wally's retirement, the pair spent much time traveling in their motor home, including frequent trips to their "home away from home" Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It was always in the motor home because Connie and Wally insisted on traveling with whichever of the string of poodles and cats of whom they were currently the adoring owners. As Wally struggled with his health at the end of his life, Connie never wavered by his side. They would finally both resettle at Woodstown's Friends Village, where Connie would again live among her old neighborhood friends and where Wally would finally pass after 63 years of marriage. Connie reveled in being a grandmother, knowing the grandkids favorite sweets and slipping them money. Besides her four children she is survived by 6 grandchildren, the children of Terri and Robert Rhodes, Alex, Emily & William, Cindy and Chris Redefer's children Katie & Christopher Redefer and Dan Buskirk and his spouse Keri Farrow's son Nathaniel Cole Buskirk. She was predeceased by her beloved sister Rosemarie, who lived three doors down their whole adult life. Funeral services will be held 11:00 AM Friday June 19th, at at the Eglington Cemetery, Clarksboro, NJ. In lieu of flowers the family asks that a donation to made made in Connie Buskirk's name to the Salem County Humane Society