Sarah Burgess was the only daughter of Bruce Trescowthick and his wife Rosalie (Chinner). She was educated at the Angaston Girls' Grammar School, leaving school during the depression. Burgess found seasonal work on the fruit blocks, and then, at seventeen, went to be general help to Miss Alex Sage in the Angaston Tourist Hostel (later the Wanera Hotel). Here she worked 70 hours a week, shift work, for ten shillings a week.
In 1935 Burgess married Arthur Eric Miller, a bank teller at Angaston., and they moved to Kelmscott, near Port Adelaide, in 1936. They had two sons. In 1943 they moved to the Savings Bank in Hindmarsh, where they stayed until the end of the war. In 1947 they shifted again to the Croydon Park caravan park, and thirteen months later Sarah left Arthur, taking the boys to live with her parents at Angaston for four years.
Burgess divorced and, in 1952, married Tom Burgess, a welder at Unsworths, stainless steel specialists. He had three small children who had been for a while in the care of Salvation Army homes. The newly married couple had a daughter together, bringing their combined family to six.
Burgess's interests have included tennis and calisthenics. She ran a calisthenics class at Angaston 1949-1952, and in later years ran the Cooinda Senior Citizens Recreation Centre's Marching Group. She had a long-term involvement with the Marino Progress Association, and worked for the restoration of Kingston House. As well as the play listed on AusLit, Burgess has written two family histories; Charles Chinner and his Descendants in Australia and The Parkyn Family in Australia.
