Sala Burton

Sala Burton (née Galante; April 1, 1925 – February 1, 1987) was a Polish-born American politician who served as a United States Representative from California from 1983 until her death from colon cancer in Washington, D. C., in 1987.

She was born Sala Galante into a Jewish family in Białystok, Poland, on April 1, 1925.

The family immigrated to the US in 1939, before the German invasion of Poland, and she attended public schools in San Francisco and then the University of San Francisco.

She was the associate director of the California Public Affairs Institute from 1948 to 1950.

Galante met her second husband Phillip Burton at a California Young Democrats convention in 1950.

She was the vice president of the California Democratic Council from 1951 to 1954.

They divorced in 1951.

They were married from 1953 until Phillip Burton's death in 1983.

They raised her daughter, Joy, together.

Phillip & Sala Burton High School, on the site of the former Woodrow Wilson High School in San Francisco, is named after the couple.

Burton served as a delegate to Democratic National Conventions, 1956, 1976, 1980, and 1984.

She served as president of the San Francisco Democratic Women's Forum from 1957 to 1959.

She was elected as a Democrat to the 98th Congress by special election on June 21, 1983, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of her husband, United States Representative Phillip Burton.

She was reelected to the two succeeding Congress terms and mentored her successor and future Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who replaced Burton after her death in 1987.

Galante married Irving Lipschultz.

Together, they had one daughter, Joy.

Burton died from colon cancer on February 1, 1987, in Washington, D.C., and was buried in the San Francisco National Cemetery in the Presidio.