according to Burns' autobiography "Freak Unique", her first marriage was to a German "Freiherr". As her father was Jewish, she moved to Vienna to escape the Nazis. At a tea dance in Vienna, she met an English soldier from Liverpool named Francis Burns. Evelina was 46 years old when she gave birth to Burns. He later wrote of his childhood in his autobiography in which he described his mother's alcoholism and suicide attempts but maintained that she was "absolutely the best mother in the world".