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Faith in Every Chapter:
FACES OF THE CRYSTAL COAST: WENDY GILLIKIN BURKE
At 67, lifelong Otway resident Wendy Burke has survived cancer, heart failure, cardiac arrest and profound loss. Through it all, family, hard work, sewing, and an unwavering faith have remained at the center of her life.
By Coastal 55+
Wendy Gillikin Burke in her sewing room in Otway.
There is something special about people who still know how to make things with their own hands.
In Otway, Wendy Gillikin Burke is one of them. Through years of sewing and creating, Wendy has turned a practical skill into a craft shaped by patience, creativity and connection. We caught up with her to hear how it all began and what keeps her behind the sewing machine today.
Where Her Roots Run Deep
Ask Wendy Gillikin Burke how long she has lived in Otway, and her answer comes with the certainty of someone whose roots run deep.
“Ninety-nine percent of it, I have.”
Born at the old Morehead City Hospital, Wendy spent brief periods elsewhere as a very young child while her father worked on dredge boats up and down the coast.
“When I started school, Daddy pretty much quit the dredge boats and came back home,” she said. “He farmed full time with his dad and worked as a carpenter.”
And Otway became home for good.
Wendy grew up on family land with her parents, Leland and Sylvia Rose Gillikin, and two sisters. She was the oldest.
“I am the oldest, and I am the only one left,” she said quietly.
The lessons her parents taught her remain very much alive.
“My daddy’s favorite saying was, ‘Time and tide wait for no man,’” Wendy recalled.
There was another lesson, too.
“If you want to do something, do it, but do it right.”
Her mother, Sylvia, brought a different kind of strength to the family.
“My mom never met a stranger,” Wendy said. “She always had an open heart.”
When illness left Leland unable to continue working as a carpenter, Sylvia became his full-time caregiver. Caring for him still meant encouraging him to do everything he remained capable of doing.
“She was one of those people who would say, ‘You can do it yourself,’” Wendy remembered. “She was adamant about that, and he did. He kept getting up and doing what he could.”
That determination became part of Wendy, too.
Wendy, Sylvia and her sisters at home in Otway.
Clock built by Leland Gillikin in 1970.
A Clock That Still Keeps Time
Leland Gillikin was, in Wendy’s words, an “A-1 carpenter.”
“There are many original homes built on the island, in Atlantic Beach, Emerald Isle and Pine Knoll Shores, that he was part of building,” she said. “A lot of people around here knew the quality of his carpentry. He was excellent.”
But one of his creations has a more personal place in Wendy’s life.
“I have a grandfather clock that my dad built in 1970.”
Wendy remembers coming home from school and going into his workshop to watch him work with his lathe.
“I was there and watched him create it,” she said. “Now it sits in my home.”
More than 50 years later, it still keeps time.
“It chimes every 15 minutes, day and night, and you get used to it. It is just part of our life.”
Her beloved husband, Lonnie, keeps the clock going, manually tending to its weights.
"I Just Love It"
Wendy’s father built with wood. Wendy found her own creative outlet in fabric.
“Oh, my goodness, yes,” she said when asked whether she had been sewing for a long time.
“Mama taught me. In high school, we had home economics, where I learned more of the finer techniques. Everything else I taught myself.”
By high school, Wendy was making nearly all of her own clothes.
As an adult and mother, sewing became useful in another way.
“When my girls were younger, if I saw something in a store and knew I could not afford it, I could afford a couple of dollars for material,” she said. “Fabric did not cost what it does now. I could make something, and they never went without.”
She remembers treating her daughters almost like two little dolls she could dress.
“I would put them to bed and stay up sewing, making something pretty for them to wear the next day,” Wendy said. “It was nothing unusual for them to wake up and have a new outfit.”
And she never really stopped.
During our interview, Wendy was sitting in the room where she still works today.
“I was sewing this morning,” she said. “I am sitting here in my sewing room right now. I love it. I just love it.”
People now come to her from throughout the area for alterations. B&W Cleaners has also referred customers to Wendy.
“They stay busy, and I am not taking anything from them,” Wendy explained. “I am helping provide a service they cannot complete.”
Above her sewing machine hangs a framed 2008 newspaper story about her mother, Sylvia, a fitting reminder of the woman who first put Wendy on this path.
But Wendy’s sewing room has become more than a place to work.
It has become a place to pray.
“I come into my sewing room every day, sit down and pray that He guides me,” she said. “I know it is a talent, and I know I cannot do it without Him. I give Him the glory.”
And each finished order carries something extra.
“One little thing I do is put a prayer card on every one of my orders,” Wendy said. “When someone picks up an order, there is a prayer card attached to it.”
Some customers have come back and told her how much the words meant.
“Some say, ‘You do not know how much that meant to me. Those were the perfect words.’”
Wendy does not take credit.
“It is not me,” she said. “It is the Lord.”
Sometimes, before choosing a card, she prays simply, “Lord, let me get the right card today.”
“If I can plant a seed in somebody, I am going to do it, if it is His will.”
Wendy at her sewing machine with a article and photo of her mother, Sylvia, who was featured in the Carteret County Times in 2008 for her boat carvings.
Wendy and her beloved husband, Lonnie.
Family, and Then a New Chapter
Wendy became a wife and mother very young. She married for the first time at 16 and went on to have two daughters.
As the years passed, she was also dealing with significant health problems. The marriage went through difficult seasons and eventually ended in divorce.
That ending did not erase the family they had created together.
Wendy and her former husband have remained friendly, and she speaks with appreciation for the relationship he continues to have with their daughters.
“Their dad lives in Beaufort, near both of our daughters, and he has always been part of their lives, too,” she said.
The girls later lived with Wendy full time, while continuing to see their father. Wendy has always been clear that he remained their dad and continued to love them.
Then another chapter began.
Wendy met Lonnie.
"I Am Not Leaving You"
Wendy and Lonnie married in 1987.
“He is from Oklahoma,” she said. “I tell him he is my ‘Okie from Muskogee.’”
Their marriage would soon face a major test.
“When I was 31, I found out I had breast cancer.”
Lonnie had already served in the military as Marine for 11 years and was facing new orders.
“When I learned I had cancer and needed treatment, he said, ‘I am not leaving you. I am not going.’”
Wendy did not want him to give up his career. Lonnie tried to have his orders changed so he could stay nearby and reenlist.
“They said no,” she recalled.
So he chose Wendy and the family.
“He said his time to renew was coming up, so he would not renew,” she said. “They lost a good man, but we made it. We made a life.”
Wendy underwent nearly a year of treatment.
“Through the breast cancer and almost a year of treatment, he never flinched,” she said. “He always took care of the girls.”
Lonnie later spent 21 years working in security at the North Carolina Aquarium before retiring April 1, 2026.
Wendy at her sewing station, looking up at a newspaper article about her mother, Sylvia.
Wendy and her father, Leland Gillikin.
"It Never Stopped Me"
Cancer was far from Wendy’s only health challenge.
She experienced years of painful health problems and surgeries.
“Sometimes I was almost incapacitated, but it never stopped me,” she said.
She credits that attitude to her parents.
“Do what you can do and do not let it get to you.”
In her 40s, Wendy developed heart failure and received a pacemaker.
Then came sudden cardiac arrest.
By that time, Wendy’s mother had died, and Wendy had moved into her father’s home to care for him. Her own house with Lonnie was nearby.
“I kept Daddy going,” she said. “We made it work.”
Family members had begun noticing how exhausted she had become.
The morning her heart stopped, Wendy had relatives staying with her following an uncle’s death.
“I got up, made pancakes and served everyone breakfast,” she recalled. “I had cleaned the house, made the beds and gotten everything ready for them, all while caring for Daddy.”
She dressed and prepared to leave.
“I walked over to hug my aunt goodbye, and that is when I collapsed.”
Wendy remembers none of what followed.
“I only know what people told me afterward.”
Her daughter had just come through the back door and found Wendy on the floor. The family called 911 and tried to help.
Then something happened that may have made all the difference.
A local first responder heard the address over the call and recognized it as Leland’s home. He initially thought the emergency might be about Wendy’s father.
Instead of first going to the department to get the squad, he drove straight to the house in his personal vehicle and began lifesaving care.
“They defibrillated me six times on the way to the hospital,” Wendy said. “When we arrived, they airlifted me to Greenville.”
She lost roughly two weeks of memory surrounding the event.
“People did not think I was going to survive.”
And through those missing days, Wendy was later told, Lonnie never left her side.
In 2017, Wendy suffered another cardiac arrest, this time at a local pharmacy.
By then she had an implanted defibrillator.
“It shocked me,” she said. “The defibrillator did what it was supposed to do.”
"God Is In Every Chapter"
Wendy can tell stories that would leave most people speechless and still find a reason to laugh.
So when asked at 67 what she is most thankful for and what brings her joy, she does not hesitate.
“The Lord.”
Then she explains.
“It is just another chapter in my life, but He is in every chapter. I give Him all the glory because I am so grateful.”
When Wendy thinks about the legacy she most wants to leave her children and grandchildren, her answer goes straight to the faith that has carried her through her own life.
“That they follow Him,” Wendy said. “Because if they follow Him, what else are you going to ask for?”
For Wendy, there is comfort in believing that faith also reaches beyond this life.
“I know I will see them again on the other side.”
Wendy’s creativity also came from a mother who knew what it meant to make something with her own hands. Sylvia Gillikin became known for carving miniature wooden skiffs, carefully constructing and finishing models that reflected the traditional boats of the Down East communities she called home. A framed newspaper story about Sylvia, titled “Otway woman carves her way into hearts of many,” still hangs above Wendy’s sewing machine.
A Life Woven Into Otway
Wendy has watched Otway change over the decades.
She remembers Otway Grocery as the place “where everybody went shopping.”
Later, she and a cousin spent years helping operate an arcade in the old store building.
“I have been in the public eye for most of my life,” Wendy said.
She worked in several convenience stores. She sewed. And there was another talent many local families may remember.
“I was a cake decorator for many years, too,” she said. “I made a lot of local people’s wedding cakes, birthday cakes and other special-occasion cakes.”
Then Wendy added a phrase that seems to describe her life particularly well.
“That was just another chapter in my life.”
There have been many chapters.
A carpenter’s daughter watching her father build a grandfather clock.
A young mother staying awake after her daughters went to sleep so they could wake up to new clothes.
A marriage begun when she was very young, two daughters deeply loved by both of their parents, and later a new marriage that would carry her through some of the hardest years of her life.
A wife hearing her husband say, “I am not leaving you.”
A caregiver making pancakes for everyone else when her own body was nearly spent.
A first responder who recognized an Otway address and chose to drive straight there.
A woman whose heart stopped, more than once, who is still here to tell the story.
And today, a seamstress in Otway who sits down at her machine, asks God to guide her hands and quietly attaches a prayer card to someone’s finished order.
For Wendy Burke, the chapters have changed.
Her answer for how she has made it through them has not.
“God is in every chapter.”
WHO SHOULD WE FEATURE NEXT?
WHO SHOULD WE FEATURE NEXT?
Do you know someone age 55 or older in Carteret County whose life, service, talents or adventures deserve to be celebrated? Nominate yourself or someone you know for Faces of the Crystal Coast.
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