Donna Burton, a luncheonette owner and avid traveler, dies

Edward Lee, The Baltimore Sun
·1 min read

Decades after moving out of her hometown of Gorizia, Italy, Donna Maria Burton returned as often as she could to the town located at the foot of the Julian Alps, bordering what is now Slovenia, making the trip 10 to 12 times before tiring of the hourslong flights.

Her appearances were cause for celebration.

“I think the people in town over there knew her very well when she’d come back,” said her son, Jim DeFrancesco. “It would almost make the local news at times, and I think that was because of what they had to endure during the war. So they knew her very well.”

Mrs. Burton, a single mother of two who owned a sub shop on Edmondson Avenue and enjoyed traveling, died Aug. 12 at the Gilchrist Center in Towson due to the coronavirus. She had celebrated her 98th birthday in June.