Dr. Catherine Burns Lush, 94, died in Glencoe, June 13, 2011.

She was born in Albert Lea Nov. 18, 1916, daughter of Dr. Hiram Burns and Corinne S. Burns. She graduated from Albert Lea High School in 1933 and from Wellesley College, Mass., in 1938. After working two years doing medical research at Presbyterian Hospital in New York City she attended the University of Medical School where she was one of three Albert Lea women trained as medical doctors under Minnesota’s 10 percent quota for women in medical school. She graduated in 1944. After completing her internship she enlisted in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps and was stationed at Great Lakes Naval Station in Chicago for 18 months. After the war she practiced medicine in Duluth, Fairbanks, Ark., and Albert Lea. In 1958 she married Clifford Lush and they moved to Tonka Bay where she worked at the University of Minnesota health service and in the public schools.

She enjoyed traveling and leading tours worldwide.

In the early 1940s Burns had bought property on Gunflint Lake on the Minnesota side of the Canadian border and built a cabin there. She remained a summer resident there all her life. In the early days, she helped with emergency medical treatments up the Gunflint Trail, such as sewing up axe wounds and removing fishhooks. There was no hospital in Grand Marais at that time.

When she and her husband retired in 1974, they spent their winters in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., until they bought property in Cottonwood, Ariz., where she lived for 10 years. There she was a member of the Verde Valley Presbyterian Church and the P.E.O. Sisterhood. In 2008 she returned to Minnesota to live with her daughters Betty and Barbara, in Glencoe.

She was a loving mother. She was a pioneer, a pilot, an outdoors woman, a world traveler, a painter and a musician. She saw goodness and beauty in all things.

She was preceded in death by her parents; her brother, Robert D. Burns; and her husband, Clifford Lush. She is survived by her daughters: Barbara Henderson and Betty Robson, both of Glencoe; and step-daughter, Judy Johnston, of Spokane, Wash.; sisters: Alice Gilmore (Orv) of Cottonwood, Ariz., and Margery Carlson of Bloomfield, Cont., as well as numerous grandchildren, nieces, nephews and friends.

A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. on Saturday, July 23, at the First Presbyterian Church in Albert Lea.