One lived in Illinois, and the other in the Congo, but they shared an occupation: they were lifelines.
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“Driver Susie Burns was shrink and chauffeur to the carless and the careworn,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Her obituary describes the daily kindnesses she’d perform for her passengers.
Ms. Burns’ humanity extended far beyond her professional duties: she adopted three children – one was handicapped, the other two had suffered abuse – and she took in foster children.
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Pierre Mambele didn’t just drive journalists around Congo’s capital, he drove the news: “[T]he news would often have gone unheard without him,” his Reuters obituary declares.
He always kept an ear out for breaking news and for nuggets of truth in Kinshasa’s endless rumors. Mambele never hesitated to suggest ideas for stories he thought needed telling and the best people to speak to.
As his Economist obituary notes, his devotion also went beyond the requirements of his profession:
[H]e was a driver first … But he and the car, as its bashes showed, would drive through anything. He had to get his journalists, first, to where they wanted to go and, second, safely back again. If bad stuff happened, and they ended up hauled from the car or in jail, he would stay until he had rescued them … He became their protector and friend.