Alberta I. Wuerfele, Burlington
The funeral service for former Burlington resident Alberta I. Wuerfele, 88, will be at 1:30 p.m. Friday at the Jones Funeral Home in Burlington. Burial will be in Graceland Cemetery.
The family will meet friends from 7 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the funeral home. Memorial contributions may be made to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation or the American Heart Association.
Ms. Wuerfele died Saturday, Dec. 23, at Westchester Health and Rehabilitation facility in Westchester, Ill., of complications from Parkinson’s disease.
Alberta I. Wuerfele, the second of six daughters of George and Fonda Graham Wuerfele, was born Oct. 29, 1918, at Burlington. She taught in a one-room schoolhouse for six years before moving to Wichita, where she worked for Boeing Aircraft. She joined the Women’s Army Corps at the onset of World War II and served as a driver and, later, a supervisor of a motor pool.
After her discharge, she moved to Chicago and worked as a bookkeeper for American National Bank. She became the first woman officer of the bank in 1967 and three years later became the first woman to serve as a senior vice president at American National, now known as Chase Bank. She was the first female controller of a billion-dollar bank, and retired in 1984.
Ms. Wuerfele is survived by three sisters, Marguerite Myers, Lucille Woods, and Betty Roegner. Two sisters, Georgia Wuerfele and Mildred Stillian, died earlier.