Early Years
Born at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island on February 10, 1913, the son of Frederick and Agnes Kirkwood (Fraser) Burke. His mother died from the Spanish flu pandemic in 1919 when Carl was age 6, and in later life he would ensure that the Kirkwood name would be memorialized in both a street name in Charlottetown as well in a modern motor lodge he opened. Carl Frederick Burke started flying lessons at Saint John, New Brunswick in 1936, subsequently earning a commercial license and, in 1939, qualifying for an air engineer's certificate. In 1939, he became a pilot for Canadian Airways Limited (CAL) at Moncton, New Brunswick, during which he was involved in the air rescue of a pilot in Musgrove Harbor, Newfoundland, flying a ski-equipped de Havilland Dragon Rapide, and also recovered the bodies of Sir Frederick Banting, navigator William Bird and Wlliam Snailman.
He joined the Royal Air Force Ferry Command (RAFFC) after CAL was purchased by Canadian Pacific Air Services. In 1941, along with Josiah Anderson, he received a license to operate a scheduled commercial air service between Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island and Moncton and Saint John, New Brunswick. Following the death of Anderson, Burke opened his business, Maritime Central Airways, alone.
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Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“Our instructed vagrancy, which has hardly time to linger by the hedgerows, but runs away early to the tropics, and is at home with palms and banyans—which is nourished on books of travel, and stretches the theatre of its imagination to the Zambesi.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Twenty years a child; twenty years running wild; twenty years a mature man—and after that, praying.”
—Irish proverb.