James was born in 1912, the first child of Jay Ritchie & Ethel Mae Burgess Burgess. His mother's father, James Velvin Burgess, had died in 1906, and Ethel named her first child after him. There were three children in the family. They lived in a large Victorian gingerbread house on Cox Road in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, next door to Jay's parents in a similar house. James went to VPI (now Virginia Tech) for his undergrad and master's degrees in Electrical Engineering. Graduating in the 1930's, he went to work at the TVA project in northern Alabama. He enlisted in the Army for WWII and was in the Signal Corps in London for most of the war, also spending some time behind enemy lines in France. At the end of the war, he returned to his job at the TVA but continued in the Army Reserve as a Lieutenant Colonel until his retirement, typically teaching for two weeks every summer at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey. His future wife Mabel also worked at TVA and they married in the Summer of 1950 in Sheffield, Alabama. Soon after the birth of their first daughter, they moved to Petersburg, Virginia, where their second daughter was born, and where James' parents had moved in the intervening years. James worked for Allis Chalmers and Allied Chemicals. He was offered a job as a nuclear engineer with the Atomic Energy Commission (later the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) and the family moved to Bethesda, Maryland, within the Washington DC beltway. He worked there until his retirement in 1977. Soon after, his emphysema escalated and he was an invalid for the last few years of his life. Mabel looked after him at home until shortly before he died of emphysema and sepsis in early 1985 at Bethesda Naval Hospital.
James was born in 1912, the first child of Jay Ritchie & Ethel Mae Burgess Burgess. His mother's father, James Velvin Burgess, had died in 1906, and Ethel named her first child after him. There were three children in the family. They lived in a large Victorian gingerbread house on Cox Road in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, next door to Jay's parents in a similar house. James went to VPI (now Virginia Tech) for his undergrad and master's degrees in Electrical Engineering. Graduating in the 1930's, he went to work at the TVA project in northern Alabama. He enlisted in the Army for WWII and was in the Signal Corps in London for most of the war, also spending some time behind enemy lines in France. At the end of the war, he returned to his job at the TVA but continued in the Army Reserve as a Lieutenant Colonel until his retirement, typically teaching for two weeks every summer at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey. His future wife Mabel also worked at TVA and they married in the Summer of 1950 in Sheffield, Alabama. Soon after the birth of their first daughter, they moved to Petersburg, Virginia, where their second daughter was born, and where James' parents had moved in the intervening years. James worked for Allis Chalmers and Allied Chemicals. He was offered a job as a nuclear engineer with the Atomic Energy Commission (later the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) and the family moved to Bethesda, Maryland, within the Washington DC beltway. He worked there until his retirement in 1977. Soon after, his emphysema escalated and he was an invalid for the last few years of his life. Mabel looked after him at home until shortly before he died of emphysema and sepsis in early 1985 at Bethesda Naval Hospital.
Inscription
LTC US ARMY WORLD WAR II KOREA VIETNAM
