Burr Knight McFarland Jr. (1921-2010)
MCFARLAND, WARNER, SMITH
Posted By: Ames Tribune
Date: 3/1/2010 at 07:43:47
THE AMES TRIBUNE, Ames, Story County, Iowa, Saturday, February 27, 2010.
Burr Knight McFarland Jr., 88, passed away peacefully Friday, Feb. 26 at the Israel Family Hospice House in Ames with his wife Virginia and his family by his side. A visitation will be Monday, March 1, from 5 to 7 p.m. at Stevens Memorial Chapel in Ames. Funeral services will be Tuesday, March 2 at 10:30 a.m. at First United Methodist Church in Ames. Burial will follow in the Ames Municipal Cemetery.
He was born on a farm near Winthrop in rural Buchanan County on Nov. 11, 1921, to Burr K. McFarland, Sr. and Dena (Warner) McFarland. The family moved to Independence in 1924, where Burr Jr. received his public school education. He played basketball and football and was a member of the National Honor Society. Burr was the vice president of his class for four years. Upon graduating from Independence High School in 1939, Burr began working for Wolfe and Sheets Plumbing and Heating Company with the intent of learning those trades as a career. World War II interfered with those plans and Burr joined the U.S. Navy in early 1942.
Basic training was at Great Lakes NTS, after which he was assigned to a new destroyer, the USS Luce DD522. He served aboard this ship in the Aleutian Islands as part of the fleet that were the first surface ships to attack the Japanese home islands. From the Aleutians, they went to the Western Pacific for the liberation of the Philippines and then to Okinawa, where Burr was seriously wounded in his bladder and left leg when the ship was sunk by Japanese Kamikaze planes. While a patient in the Navy Hospital at Norman, Okla., Burr and his fiancee, Virginia Wilson were married by the chaplain of the hospital on Aug. 25, 1945.
After his discharge from the Navy, Burr enrolled at Iowa State College, graduating in 1949. He worked for Lechner Engineering Co. in Ames for 3 ½ years and then at the Iowa State Highway Commission for more than 30 years as a highway designer and a data processing manager, retiring in 1984.
He was a member of the First United Methodist Church, where he served in the Sunday school, on the Church Official Board, as a financial secretary and as a Trustee. He served for more than 20 years in the Boy Scouts of America on a troop committee, as an assistant Scoutmaster and a Scoutmaster of Troops 169 and 161. He was a life member of the Disabled American Veterans, Tin Can Sailors (a Navy destroyer veteran’s organization); past president and secretary of the Ames Golden K Kiwanis, life member of the Nebraska/Iowa Kiwanis Foundation and a George F. Hixson Fellow of Kiwanis International. Burr was also a long time volunteer for the Iowa Games and a past member of the Windsor Oaks board of directors.
Burr enjoyed woodworking, gardening, camping and the outdoors, until his war wounds, which gave him problems most of his life, dictated a change of lifestyle. He and Virginia sold their home of 50 years and moved to Windsor Oaks, a complex for senior living. Here he enjoyed watching basketball and baseball on TV and spent time keeping in touch with family, friends and shipmates via computer, telephone and personal visits.
Burr battled several cancers for the past three years and always expressed thanks to God that he was 85 years old and not 58 when the cancers struck. He thanked God in all circumstances, good and bad, for being there to support and sustain him.
Burr is survived by Virginia, his wife of 64 years; three sons, Dennis (Suzy), of Hamilton, New Zealand; David (Dolly), of Ames; and Paul (Cathy), of Indianola; one daughter, Carol (Duane E.) Smith, of Ames; nine grandchildren; seven step-grandchildren; five great-grandsons; and many nieces, nephews and cousins.
His parents, his brother, Kenneth, and his sister, Arlene, preceded Burr in death.
In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to the First United Methodist Church, Ames Golden K Kiwanis Foundation, or The Navy Relief Fund of the NROTC at Iowa State University.
Online condolences may be made at www.stevensmemorialchapel.com.
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