BIRCH, Thomas Henry

BIRCH, MCQUEEN, MILLER, SOLINGER, SMITH, MCMULLEN

Posted By: Lynette Edsall (email)
Date: 7/17/2007 at 20:40:30

Cherokee Chronicle Times, Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Thomas Henry Birch, 92, of Colorado Spring, Colo. and former Marcus area resident, died in Colorado Springs on July 1, 2007.

Graveside services were held Monday, July 9, at 10:30 a.m. at the Oak Hill Cemetery in Cherokee. Rev. Ray Kruger officiated.

Tom was born on the family farm near Marcus, on Jan. 15, 1915. He was the fifth of ten children born to Arthur Ira Birch and Anna McQueen Birch. He graduated from Marcus High School in 1932; then earned a law (JD) degree from the University of Iowa in 1940. Later that same year he was called in to the U. S. Army as a 2nd Lieutenant.

On July 5, 1941, Tom married Dorothy Helen Miller of Marcus, in Minden, Louisiana. Assigned to the second Division, 9th Infantry, "H" Co., he served as a company commander in Europe during World War II from the D-Day invasion at Omaha Beach, where he was later wounded at St. Lo and again at the Battle of the Bulge, until meeting up with the Russians in Rokycany, Czechoslovakia in May of 1945.

He served as a Judge Advocate officer with the 1st Calvary Division in Korea during that conflict. In 1968 Tom retired from the Army as a Colonel and practiced law at Carew and Birch for some thirty years in Colorado Springs.

He was preceded in death by his parents, his wife Dorothy in 1977 and five sisters and three brothers.

He is survived by his brother O. Kenneth Birch of Gilbert, Arizona; his five children; Rebecca Birch Solinger of Petaluma, Calf., Melissa Smith of Overland Park, Kan., Thomas Birch, Jr. of Bay City, Mich., Bruce Birch of Littleton, Colo., and Sarah McMullen of Monument, Colo., seven grandchildren; Nicholas Birch, Travis Smith, Nathaniel Birch, Leah Smith, Tessa McMullen, Abigail Birch, and Ian McMullen; and two great grandchildren Sierra Birch and Daphne Smith.