Burdock Everdeen’s Family Lineage: Who Is His Mother?

Another ongoing mystery from Sunrise involves Burdock’s own parents and, by association, his Covey’s family lineage. Collins’ narrative through Haymitch purposely hides this information as she often does. However, important clues abound, both overt and subtle. Early on, a teenage Burdock sees Lenore Dove up in the apple tree and says, “Hey, cuz, you allowed out here alone?” (SOR 7) Haymitch then tells us rather cryptically that Lenore Dove “wasn’t one of Burdock Everdeen’s cousins, but I knew he had some distant ones on his ma’s side.” Perhaps few lines in Sunrise have thrown off the fandom to the extent of this one, as this is where the popular assumption that Maude Ivory is Katniss’ paternal grandmother goes to die. There is no shame in buying hook, line, and sinker into this headcanon; I, too, had argued strongly about this probability given the wealth of evidence (Paradis). Instead, Maude Ivory is all but certainly Lenore Dove’s mother who died in childbirth (see this post), while Burdock is only a distant cousin according to Haymitch. It is important to keep in mind that Haymitch is an unreliable narrator who is not necessarily always accurate or fully knowledgeable. Still, these are carefully chosen words from Collins, providing us with vital clues as to Katniss’ true family lineage through Burdock and the Covey (see this post for a full District 12 Family Tree).

What we do know from book canon—as quoted above—is that Lenore Dove and Burdock Everdeen are not immediate first cousins, which makes sense given the known members of the Covey family from the time of Ballad. Aside from Clerk Carmine and Billy Taupe, there are no further sibling pairs in the Covey. Rather, the Covey Bairds are all first cousins themselves, as far as we know, namely Lucy Gray, Maude Ivory, and Barb Azure. Their respective parents had served as uncles and aunts, if not parents, to the three Baird cousins before being killed. This all lends more credibility to the notion that Burdock could indeed be Barb Azure’s son, as he would still technically be a “distant cousin” with Lenore Dove. While Collins had coded Barb Azure as LGBTQ+ in Ballad, it is certainly possible for her to raise a family of her own. Moreover, both her character and gravestone are conspicuously missing from Sunrise.

Given the probable Covey family tree depicted below, Burdock would be Lenore Dove’s “first cousin once removed” if Barb Azure is his mother. This still seems too close to be “distant cousins,” but Collins has not provided any additional knowledge about other Covey members waiting in the wings. The “once removed” title describes the relationship between the children of first cousins, which would apply in this case to the respective children of Maude Ivory and Barb Azure. They are not technically “second cousins” because they still share the same direct lineage from the grandparent of Maude Ivory, Barb Azure, and Lucy Gray. Now one generation later, however, Lenore Dove and Burdock are “once removed” because they share the same great-grandparent. At this point we know of no other Covey family members who had been involuntarily corralled in District 12 by Peacekeepers during wartime. Therefore, while Burdock could be a more distant “second cousin” as indicated below, it is highly unlikely that the three Covey girls already had other distant relatives in 12 that we don’t know about. By process of elimination, then, Burdock is logically Lenore Dove’s first cousin once removed, while Katniss Everdeen would be first cousin twice removed from any child that Lenore Dove (and Haymitch) might have had.

Whether Barb Azure turns out to be Burdock’s mother or not, Burdock is still related to the Covey. By association this means that Katniss is Covey as well, albeit with a diluted bloodline. Still, Katniss becomes culturally enmeshed in Covey traditions, lore, musical knowledge, and especially the “wildcrafting” and backwoods survival skills passed down by her determined father. She further inherits the musical legacy of Lucy Gray and Maude Ivory. I have previously made the case that Burdock was on a serious mission to train his older daughter to be self-sufficient in case anything should ever happen to him. And job well done. Essentially Katniss was raised in the woods, learning to swim at the lake before she could talk, navigating the Hob to learn how to trade, and most vitally, learning an array of life-saving, plant gathering, and hunting skills that would prove absolutely essential for her surviving both Games and the rebellion itself. For this reason, Burdock Everdeen could easily be recognized as the most influential deceased character of the original trilogy. (Paradis, 49-50)

Reference: Paradis, Thomas. 2022. A Place Called District 12: Appalachian Geography and Music in the Hunger Games. McFarland Press.

Graphic Source: adapted from Hochwald, L. “What is a Second Cousin vs. a Second Cousin Once Removed?” Reader’s Digest, 23 July, 2024.