Maria Alicia Burger, at the age of 91, passed away in the early morning hours of August 3, 2026 while at her home in San Antonio, Texas. She has found herself in the caring arms of the Lord, reunited with many of her loved ones who have passed on before her, as she also leaves behind on this earth many family and friends that she cared deeply for. The love that the family and friends of Alicia have for her is just as deep, as they gather together to cherish her life and her memory.

Alicia was born on January 24, 1935. She was the daughter of James Alton Walker, a young soldier from Alabama stationed at Fort Sam Houston, and Lula Guerra, a local woman in San Antonio with whom Alton had fallen in love. Alicia grew up with her parents in the neighborhood of Lavaca, where all her Spanish-speaking aunts and uncles from her mother's side of the family lived. She attended St. Michael's Academy nearby and would often spend time playing with both her cousins and her friends from that school. One of the people she cherished most growing up was her hardworking grandma, Emma Guerra, who lived with her family and to help her parents in raising her, even taking on a job as a clothing laundress and working from home at a time when her family was only making 11 dollars a month on a soldier's salary.

While she was growing up, the young Alicia would also come to face many challenges in the upcoming years that had changed her world: A historic flood had swept through her family's home in 1946, taking everything away with it (except for her school uniform and books that her mom, Lula, had been able to grab); her beloved grandmother Emma would pass away; and her father, Alton Walker, who was now a Staff Sergeant, came back home from World War II wounded with shrapnel in his knee and leg after he had helped bring four other wounded soldiers to a first aid station in Normandy (for which he had been awarded the Purple Heart medal for his valor). In spite of all these challenges she and her family faced, Alicia was determined throughout it all to keep up her hard work and aimed her sights high, inspired by the strong examples of courage and hard work that had been set for her by her family.

She studied hard in her education while working part-time at Joske's Department Store, and in her junior year in 1951, she was recognized as being at the top of her class and placed on the honor roll at Providence High School. That following year she would also meet her first love, a boxer named Benjamin Boyd Smith, who would become the father of her first two children, Bain and Jimmy, after their marriage in 1953.

Alicia's mother, Lula, did not approve of their relationship at first, so she made the decision to pull her daughter out of her last year of high school, meaning she was unable to complete graduation. Alicia made the decision to live apart from her parents after that, moving to California with her husband and two boys, but eventually she decided to return home to San Antonio so that her children would be able to know the love of their grandparents, who in 1964 had started living in their new family home in the King William District on 502 Adams Street. It was this house- with its big swimming pool in the back and delicious chicken mole that could often be smelled cooking inside- that would become a place of fond memories for many of Alicia's children and grandchildren who would often come over to visit.

While living in San Antonio, Alicia met another man by the name of John Woodrow Rutherford, who she had first encountered in 1967 as he was working on a utility pole that was on the bus route to her job at Alamo Music. John was the father of four children at the time: Shelly, Sharon, John III, and Cynde, all of whom Alicia would become a loving mother to after their marriage that same year. Alicia and John would also become the parents of two new daughters following their marriage, Dawn and Kathleen, both of whom were raised and cared for by the two parents as John became a lifelong friend of Alicia's in the process.

Alicia wasn't just doing the hard work of parenting as an adult however; she was also hard at work in pursuing her career in life, having gotten her first real job as soon as she left high school when she started working as a record saleswoman for the San Antonio Music Company, now the Alamo Music Center today. She would use her experience in sales in that job to move up to bigger and better things when she eventually became the ticket service manager for Joske's Department Store in 1972.

Her special skill in counting and selling tickets was unmatched in speed to the point that she knew she was an entrepreneurial force in her own right, and so she founded her own ticket agency known as Tejas Ticket Service. It was the most respected ticket agency in San Antonio at the time, with concert and event promoters from all over placing their trust in her work over that of any other ticket sellers that had tried to make inroads into the city. She ran her business efficiently, often working from home while having a team of girls at the time to help her manage the logistics of getting the tickets out to where they needed to be.

Alicia's reputation in the ticket-selling business would eventually have her providing her services to Trinity University's Laurie Auditorium, which not only gave her access to more resources that would help in sales for both the auditorium and her ticket company, but also working for Trinity University gave her the unique opportunity to finally obtain her GED as a benefit of the job, remedying the situation from her teenage years where she had been denied her high school diploma.

While educating herself at Trinity, Alicia recalled the many stories of her own heritage that her mother, Lula, had told her growing up: about how Lula's own grandmother Manuela Delgado came from one of San Antonio's original 16 Canary Islander families, sent by the Spanish crown in 1731 with the express purpose of founding Texas's first civil government. Lula would always tell her daughter that she and her children were "Hidalgos", Spanish nobility. With her Trinity student access card now in hand, Alicia made the decision to actually find and document her genealogy. She pored over dozens of historical books and records until finally she was able to build out a tree for herself and her children. She discovered that she wasn't just descended from the Delgados, but also from 6 of the other original settlers (Curbelo, De Arocha, De Los Santos, Goraz, Rodriguez, & Travieso,) as the original Canary Islander settler community and their descendants would often marry into each other's families.

Alicia had done so many amazing things in her life already, but for her, the work was never finished. She had discovered her newfound passion for genealogy and local history and she would use the same determination and skills that she had used earlier in her life and put them to use as she joined and began her work in the Canary Islands Descendants Association. She put hundreds of hours into her work with the Canary Islanders, helping new members to access libraries and resources to build their own family trees the same way she had done, as well as becoming the editor of a long-running monthly newsletter for the organization throughout the late 1990s and the early 2000s.

Alicia would also find herself elected president of the organization by the other members several times in that period, during which she would oversee some of the most important work that the organization had begun, such as the establishment of official diplomatic connections between San Antonio and the Canary Islands (when she would accomplish a long-held dream of hers of visiting the Islands while traveling with a trade mission from San Antonio), the rekindling of the organization's ties to the local life of the city with its support of events such as San Antonio Founder's Day and the Texas Folklife Festival, as well as the holding of yearly reenactments and celebrations at San Fernando Cathedral, a church that had been originally built using donations from the 16 original Canary Islander families in the 18th century. She had a profound impact on the city, bringing many people and organizations in San Antonio together through her work.

Even though it became more difficult for her to continue her work in her later years, Alicia would take her old age in stride.  She remained clever and witty in the conversations she had with people who stopped by to visit her at her home on 502 Adams Street, and she was a joy for all her grandchildren to have around as they cherished her love and her laughter. In Alicia's final days, she didn't hold any regrets or sorrow, but rather she thought about her family and her loved ones, both living and dead, who she was always wanting to see.

Alicia was preceded in death by her mother, Ursula Guerra; her father, James Alton Walker; her first husband, Benjamin Boyd Smith; her second husband, Robert Minica; her third husband, John Woodrow Rutherford; her fourth husband, Mark Eaton; and her fifth husband, Garry Burger.

She was also preceded in death by her two sons, James Alton Smith and Bain Boyd Smith; her daughter, Sharon Lee Martin; and her three grandchildren, Elizabeth Michelle Renteria, Cameron John Kemmy, and Warren Brennan Smith.

Alicia is survived by five of her children and her children's husbands and wives who have become such a big part of the family, Shelly Kemmy, Cynthia Renteria and her husband Danny, John Rutherford III and his wife Carmen, Bain's wife Elizabeth, Sharon's husband, Eddie, Dawn Pedrazine, and Kathleen Hartman. Alicia also leaves behind seventeen grandchildren, over thirty-four great-grandchildren, and countless great-great-grandchildren.

FUNERAL SERVICES

Sunday, August 23, 2026

Visitation will begin at 3:30pm

Rosary to be recited at 4:30pm followed by Eulogies at 5:00pm

The Angelus Funeral Home

1119 N. St. Mary's St.

* * * * * * * * * *

Monday, August 24, 2026

Funeral Mass will be offered at 9:00am

San Fernando Cathedral

115 Main Plaza

*All attending will meet directly at the Cathedral and find parking on their own.*

Interment will be held in

Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery at 11:30am

*There will not be a procession to the cemetery, everyone will then meet at Shelter #3

located in the back right corner of the cemetery by 11:15am.*

MEMORIAL CONTRIBUTIONS

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be sent in her name to:

https://cida-sa.org/
or
https://sfcathedral.org/