Charlie was born in Elizabeth, N.J., and graduated from the Pingry School. He was in the Navy Hospital Corps from 1944 to 1946 before getting to Princeton, where he was introduced several times as the oldest living undergraduate member of Terrace Club. He also made a cross-country tour with classmate Norm Tomlinson. An English major, he graduated from Princeton in 1952.
Charlie traveled all around Europe and took courses in contemporary civilization at the University of Paris, where he also worked as a tutor and a guide. Back in the United States, he worked briefly at the Educational Testing Service in Princeton before earning a master’s degree in library science at Rutgers. In 1959, Charlie joined the Firestone Library staff, where he was a reference librarian and cataloger, specializing in the humanities collections. He retired in 1994.
Charlie married Sally Wilt in 1960, and nine years later, she also joined the Firestone Library staff. The Burkmans lived in Pennington, N.J., and had many summer visits to Maine. They traveled widely, and especially remember a vacation train trip across Canada, followed by a voyage up the Inside Passage, and two weeks on the Kenai Peninsula.
Charlie died June 21, 2015, at age 89. He is survived by Sally; their daughters, Katherine Mole, Elisabeth Bielski, and Sarah Burkman-Shelborne; and grandsons Matthew, Andrew, and Nathaniel.