The grandson of a famous Indian scout and the father of the 2003 U.S. Army Soldier of the Year, Frederick Russell Burnham II, himself a Vietnam veteran, entrepreneur, and proud family historian, died on Oct. 9, 2018, in the home of his son in Georgetown, Texas, with family at his side. He was 73 and had lung cancer.
Fred and his twin sister, Wren Breedlove of Tucson, AZ, were born Jan. 13, 1945, to Roderick Deane Burnham (1886-1976), a mining engineer and petroleum geologist, and Helen Gayle Cranney Burnham (1908-1985) in Long Beach, CA. Raised in Newport Beach and Palm Springs, his outlook on life was shaped in large part by the family’s sojourn to Europe at age nine, when his father piled everyone in a dove-gray and red-leather-seated Jaguar sedan and traveled around Europe to paint for two years.
Most events in Fred’s life were met with unfailing optimism and a respect for the humanity of others. As a young boy his mother once asked him why he had accepted the coat someone had pushed on him and he stated simply, “Well his insist was greater than my insist.” A member of First Baptist Georgetown, Fred also had a long involvement in EST. He was a master bridge and a grand master backgammon player. He loved the United States from deep within his soul and proudly volunteered as an election officer in Arizona and Texas for the last 30 years of his life.
After one year at the University of Arizona, Fred was drafted in 1966 and enlisted with the Army here he was promptly sent to Saigon to serve in communications. Among his wartime experiences he was bitten by a rabid dog and had to endure the brutal anti-rabies injections into his stomach. His tour of duty up, he returned to Tucson and finished a degree in accounting. Tucson is where he lived most of his adult life. For a time, he served as accountant to actor John Wayne, one of the celebrities and larger-than-life characters in the family’s orbit that included weekends on Catalina Island racing yachts.
A lifelong entrepreneur and investor, his business interests included emu ranching, the development of a restorative horse laxative, the founder of an airport limo service called Arizona Stagecoach, importing pre-formed houses from Australia, and investments in mineral rights. The latter was a family tradition started by his famous grandfather, Maj. Frederick Russell Burnham, D.S.O., an American who served in the British Army as Chief of Scouts in the South African Boer War, and who later struck oil in California. Fred promoted his grandfather’s heritage to the many biographers and historians who came calling, as “The Major” continues to be venerated to this day as the model for whom Gen. Robert Baden-Powell based his Boy Scout movement.
Fred knew the importance of this heritage and guided his own son to become an Eagle Scout and the elder of his two grandsons to do the same. He volunteered countless hours within the Boy Scout organization.
Fred was predeceased by his wife Valdeva Jean Qualiana-Burnham, with whom he had been married 14 years. He is survived by his son, Army Capt. Russell Adam Burnham and his wife Elizabeth, as well as their seven children: Emilie, Tyler, Juliette, Evangeline, Trey, and newborns Hope and Haven, all of Georgetown, Texas; his daughter, Laurel Burnham Kromer and husband Tim Kromer of Tucson, AZ; his twin sister Wren Breedlove of Tucson, AZ; his sister Begay Burnham Atkinson of Tidy Island, FL; his nephew Roderick Atkinson of Washington, DC; several step-children and three grand nieces. His is also predeceased by his former wife and mother of his children, Leah Lucille Taylor Burnham.
Fred and his twin sister, Wren Breedlove of Tucson, AZ, were born Jan. 13, 1945, to Roderick Deane Burnham (1886-1976), a mining engineer and petroleum geologist, and Helen Gayle Cranney Burnham (1908-1985) in Long Beach, CA. Raised in Newport Beach and Palm Springs, his outlook on life was shaped in large part by the family’s sojourn to Europe at age nine, when his father piled everyone in a dove-gray and red-leather-seated Jaguar sedan and traveled around Europe to paint for two years.
Most events in Fred’s life were met with unfailing optimism and a respect for the humanity of others. As a young boy his mother once asked him why he had accepted the coat someone had pushed on him and he stated simply, “Well his insist was greater than my insist.” A member of First Baptist Georgetown, Fred also had a long involvement in EST. He was a master bridge and a grand master backgammon player. He loved the United States from deep within his soul and proudly volunteered as an election officer in Arizona and Texas for the last 30 years of his life.
After one year at the University of Arizona, Fred was drafted in 1966 and enlisted with the Army here he was promptly sent to Saigon to serve in communications. Among his wartime experiences he was bitten by a rabid dog and had to endure the brutal anti-rabies injections into his stomach. His tour of duty up, he returned to Tucson and finished a degree in accounting. Tucson is where he lived most of his adult life. For a time, he served as accountant to actor John Wayne, one of the celebrities and larger-than-life characters in the family’s orbit that included weekends on Catalina Island racing yachts.
A lifelong entrepreneur and investor, his business interests included emu ranching, the development of a restorative horse laxative, the founder of an airport limo service called Arizona Stagecoach, importing pre-formed houses from Australia, and investments in mineral rights. The latter was a family tradition started by his famous grandfather, Maj. Frederick Russell Burnham, D.S.O., an American who served in the British Army as Chief of Scouts in the South African Boer War, and who later struck oil in California. Fred promoted his grandfather’s heritage to the many biographers and historians who came calling, as “The Major” continues to be venerated to this day as the model for whom Gen. Robert Baden-Powell based his Boy Scout movement.
Fred knew the importance of this heritage and guided his own son to become an Eagle Scout and the elder of his two grandsons to do the same. He volunteered countless hours within the Boy Scout organization.
Fred was predeceased by his wife Valdeva Jean Qualiana-Burnham, with whom he had been married 14 years. He is survived by his son, Army Capt. Russell Adam Burnham and his wife Elizabeth, as well as their seven children: Emilie, Tyler, Juliette, Evangeline, Trey, and newborns Hope and Haven, all of Georgetown, Texas; his daughter, Laurel Burnham Kromer and husband Tim Kromer of Tucson, AZ; his twin sister Wren Breedlove of Tucson, AZ; his sister Begay Burnham Atkinson of Tidy Island, FL; his nephew Roderick Atkinson of Washington, DC; several step-children and three grand nieces. His is also predeceased by his former wife and mother of his children, Leah Lucille Taylor Burnham.
The grandson of a famous Indian scout and the father of the 2003 U.S. Army Soldier of the Year, Frederick Russell Burnham II, himself a Vietnam veteran, entrepreneur, and proud family historian, died on Oct. 9, 2018, in the home of his son in Georgetown, Texas, with family at his side. He was 73 and had lung cancer.
Fred and his twin sister, Wren Breedlove of Tucson, AZ, were born Jan. 13, 1945, to Roderick Deane Burnham (1886-1976), a mining engineer and petroleum geologist, and Helen Gayle Cranney Burnham (1908-1985) in Long Beach, CA. Raised in Newport Beach and Palm Springs, his outlook on life was shaped in large part by the family’s sojourn to Europe at age nine, when his father piled everyone in a dove-gray and red-leather-seated Jaguar sedan and traveled around Europe to paint for two years.
Most events in Fred’s life were met with unfailing optimism and a respect for the humanity of others. As a young boy his mother once asked him why he had accepted the coat someone had pushed on him and he stated simply, “Well his insist was greater than my insist.” A member of First Baptist Georgetown, Fred also had a long involvement in EST. He was a master bridge and a grand master backgammon player. He loved the United States from deep within his soul and proudly volunteered as an election officer in Arizona and Texas for the last 30 years of his life.
After one year at the University of Arizona, Fred was drafted in 1966 and enlisted with the Army here he was promptly sent to Saigon to serve in communications. Among his wartime experiences he was bitten by a rabid dog and had to endure the brutal anti-rabies injections into his stomach. His tour of duty up, he returned to Tucson and finished a degree in accounting. Tucson is where he lived most of his adult life. For a time, he served as accountant to actor John Wayne, one of the celebrities and larger-than-life characters in the family’s orbit that included weekends on Catalina Island racing yachts.
A lifelong entrepreneur and investor, his business interests included emu ranching, the development of a restorative horse laxative, the founder of an airport limo service called Arizona Stagecoach, importing pre-formed houses from Australia, and investments in mineral rights. The latter was a family tradition started by his famous grandfather, Maj. Frederick Russell Burnham, D.S.O., an American who served in the British Army as Chief of Scouts in the South African Boer War, and who later struck oil in California. Fred promoted his grandfather’s heritage to the many biographers and historians who came calling, as “The Major” continues to be venerated to this day as the model for whom Gen. Robert Baden-Powell based his Boy Scout movement.
Fred knew the importance of this heritage and guided his own son to become an Eagle Scout and the elder of his two grandsons to do the same. He volunteered countless hours within the Boy Scout organization.
Fred was predeceased by his wife Valdeva Jean Qualiana-Burnham, with whom he had been married 14 years. He is survived by his son, Army Capt. Russell Adam Burnham and his wife Elizabeth, as well as their seven children: Emilie, Tyler, Juliette, Evangeline, Trey, and newborns Hope and Haven, all of Georgetown, Texas; his daughter, Laurel Burnham Kromer and husband Tim Kromer of Tucson, AZ; his twin sister Wren Breedlove of Tucson, AZ; his sister Begay Burnham Atkinson of Tidy Island, FL; his nephew Roderick Atkinson of Washington, DC; several step-children and three grand nieces. His is also predeceased by his former wife and mother of his children, Leah Lucille Taylor Burnham.
Fred and his twin sister, Wren Breedlove of Tucson, AZ, were born Jan. 13, 1945, to Roderick Deane Burnham (1886-1976), a mining engineer and petroleum geologist, and Helen Gayle Cranney Burnham (1908-1985) in Long Beach, CA. Raised in Newport Beach and Palm Springs, his outlook on life was shaped in large part by the family’s sojourn to Europe at age nine, when his father piled everyone in a dove-gray and red-leather-seated Jaguar sedan and traveled around Europe to paint for two years.
Most events in Fred’s life were met with unfailing optimism and a respect for the humanity of others. As a young boy his mother once asked him why he had accepted the coat someone had pushed on him and he stated simply, “Well his insist was greater than my insist.” A member of First Baptist Georgetown, Fred also had a long involvement in EST. He was a master bridge and a grand master backgammon player. He loved the United States from deep within his soul and proudly volunteered as an election officer in Arizona and Texas for the last 30 years of his life.
After one year at the University of Arizona, Fred was drafted in 1966 and enlisted with the Army here he was promptly sent to Saigon to serve in communications. Among his wartime experiences he was bitten by a rabid dog and had to endure the brutal anti-rabies injections into his stomach. His tour of duty up, he returned to Tucson and finished a degree in accounting. Tucson is where he lived most of his adult life. For a time, he served as accountant to actor John Wayne, one of the celebrities and larger-than-life characters in the family’s orbit that included weekends on Catalina Island racing yachts.
A lifelong entrepreneur and investor, his business interests included emu ranching, the development of a restorative horse laxative, the founder of an airport limo service called Arizona Stagecoach, importing pre-formed houses from Australia, and investments in mineral rights. The latter was a family tradition started by his famous grandfather, Maj. Frederick Russell Burnham, D.S.O., an American who served in the British Army as Chief of Scouts in the South African Boer War, and who later struck oil in California. Fred promoted his grandfather’s heritage to the many biographers and historians who came calling, as “The Major” continues to be venerated to this day as the model for whom Gen. Robert Baden-Powell based his Boy Scout movement.
Fred knew the importance of this heritage and guided his own son to become an Eagle Scout and the elder of his two grandsons to do the same. He volunteered countless hours within the Boy Scout organization.
Fred was predeceased by his wife Valdeva Jean Qualiana-Burnham, with whom he had been married 14 years. He is survived by his son, Army Capt. Russell Adam Burnham and his wife Elizabeth, as well as their seven children: Emilie, Tyler, Juliette, Evangeline, Trey, and newborns Hope and Haven, all of Georgetown, Texas; his daughter, Laurel Burnham Kromer and husband Tim Kromer of Tucson, AZ; his twin sister Wren Breedlove of Tucson, AZ; his sister Begay Burnham Atkinson of Tidy Island, FL; his nephew Roderick Atkinson of Washington, DC; several step-children and three grand nieces. His is also predeceased by his former wife and mother of his children, Leah Lucille Taylor Burnham.
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