‘Sans’ Name Is About Doing Without
Like most others who have met her in the last 12 years or so, I had to ask Mrs. Burke about her unusual name.
Burke is merely the designation on her Social Security card, her driver’s license and other official documents.
But Mrs. Known-to-Officialdom-as-Burke, who used to run an art gallery in Ojai, is more widely known by the four little letters she added to her surname after she divested herself of Mr. Burke in a divorce.
For years, Deborist (nee Deborah) Burke has been Mrs. Sans Burke, “sans” being French for “without.”
A plaque she received last week for her past work on the Ojai Arts Commission honored her as “Sans Burke.” While hepatitis C has sidelined her for years, Sans Burke maintains an expansive enthusiasm for art, for all things French--she can tell you Coco Chanel’s birthday, even if you don’t ask--and for sans.
“It’s a trend,” she kidded. “There’s a few of us ‘sanses’ out there and you’ll see a lot more of it. Sometimes when I order things from catalogs, the girl says, ‘Sans . . . hmmm. What does that mean?’ When I tell her, she gets really excited and says she’ll start using it too. The same thing happened with the woman who was putting together the UCLA alumni directory. She said it was the best thing since ‘Ms.’ ”
It hasn’t caught on like, say Ms., which, thankfully, has caught on hardly at all, but “sans” makes a lot of sense for the millennial family, a stew of half-siblings, stepparents and confusing surnames.
It also could be a meaningful social marker.
“If a girl says she’s Joanie Sans Jones, you’d know she’s not with Jones anymore but for some reason she wants to keep his name--which means she probably has kids,” Sans Burke said. “I look at it as a nice way for people to not have to say, ‘Oh, are you divorced?’ ”
For her, “sans” is something no divorced mother should go sans.
“I wanted my family to stay consistent, for me and my boys to have the same name,” said Sans Burke, whose sons were 3 and 13 when she divorced. “It’s hard for teachers to remember that Mrs. Anderson, say, is really Bobby Smith’s mother.”
After the divorce, her choices were limited.
She could have remained Burke, but keeping the name of her ex--as if nothing had happened--seemed like wimping out. The hyphen route, combining both their names, also posed problems.
“Dash-this, dash-that,” she said. “It’s hard enough to remember one name, no less two.”
On a trip to Paris, the answer struck the then-Burke--an ardent Francophile--like a crepes in the face.
“I wanted to be so French, so phony,” she said. So . . . sans!
Sans Burke’s illness, which she thinks stems from infected acupuncture needles, has taken its toll. She tires easily. She continually feels as if hot pokers are being jabbed through her knees and thighs. And her medication comes with side effects that are even worse.
But she reads, gardens, goes to movies, endures pain, ponders questions of the spirit, waits for a cure.
And remains, optimistically, sans.
Steve Chawkins can be reached at 653-7561 or at steve.chawkins@latimes.com
