Caroline Burgess Ansbacher passed away peacefully at her home with family at her side on January 15 at the age of 84. She is survived by her sons, David Ansbacher (Melissa), Peter Ansbacher (Erin) and her daughter, Margaret Rhee (Howard). She is also survived by her grandchildren: Josephine, Benjamin, Aidan, Nicholas, Caroline, Susannah and Shannon.
Caroline was born in Greer, South Carolina, on September 23, 1941, to Alfred Franklin and Mary Wyche Burgess. She was the second of five children: her older sister Mary Wyche, and younger siblings Frank, Granville and Vicki. She graduated in 1963 from Randolph-Macon Women’s College in Lynchburg, VA, with an Honors B.A. in Economics, and set off for a new job in Boston as a Systems Engineer with IBM. It was there that she met Benjamin Ansbacher, who would become her loving husband of 57 years. They settled in Burlington, North Carolina in 1972, where they lived together until Ben passed away in September 2025.
She lived a life full of faith, community, leadership, music and nature, and she modeled each for her children and grandchildren.
She found the Episcopal Church of the Holy Comforter upon arrival in Burlington and has been deeply tied to that church community throughout her life. She sang as an alto in the choir from 1973 until very recently, dedicated to weekly practices and beautiful music on Sundays. She served in multiple leadership roles on the vestry throughout the years and chaired the committee in the 1980s to finance and install a beautiful new organ.
Caroline was inspired to lead and take action in her community. In the midst of raising three young children, she partnered with other community leaders to found Rape Crisis Alliance (now Crossroads Sexual Assault Center), the first organization in Alamance County to support rape victims with a phone hotline, counseling, and advocacy. Later, she and a group of women founded Family Abuse Services with an initial grant from Holy Comforter, setting up the first shelter in Burlington for battered women. Recently, Caroline has continued her community involvement as a reading tutor for the past 12 years for students served by the Newlin Elementary Partnership.
Her community leadership led to an impactful political life, as she served on the Burlington City Council from 1983-1995, and as Mayor Pro Tem for the last 8 years in that role. As you drive the streets of Burlington today, you’ll see her legacy: sidewalks she advocated for, which became standard for roads throughout the city; support for Downtown revitalization, most notably sustaining the Paramount Theater; planning for future growth with early hard work that led to, among other things, the O’Neal-Rockwood connector and Alamance Crossing. Throughout her time, she was a model of civil discourse, listening to all parts of the Burlington community, and a combination of future thinking with preservation of Burlington’s unique identity.
Music was always central to Caroline’s life. She grew up around a father who performed in local musical theater, a mother who played violin in the Greenville symphony, and four siblings who gathered around the piano (then and now) to sing popular songs of the day. There were always records playing in Caroline and Ben’s home – orchestral music, Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, or the Suzuki violin recordings for the violin lessons participated in with Margaret. She served on the North Carolina Symphony Board of Directors for nine years, providing statewide leadership as well as family leadership in bringing all her young children to every symphony concert in Burlington.
Caroline found peace and beauty in the natural world, always suggesting a walk or a hike for family activities, gardening and sharing the bounty with others, and teaching her children and grandchildren about this bird or that plant. In public life, she was appointed by Governor Hunt as a founding board member of the NC Clean Water Management Trust Fund from 1996-2003 where she worked to distribute public money to support water projects; of that work, she was most proud of the work to protect Dupont Forest in Transylvania County, transforming an area slated for private development into one of the most popular parks in the state.
She was a caring mother, wife, daughter, sister, aunt, and friend. She was loved and respected as a model of kindness, love, leadership, and integrity. She will be dearly missed and always remembered.
A service will be held in honor of Caroline on Saturday, January 24, at 3 p.m. at the Church of the Holy Comforter at 320 East Davis Street in Burlington. In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts to The Episcopal Church of the Holy Comforter Endowment would be gratefully appreciated.
