James R. Burns

James R. Burns, 92, left this life on Tuesday evening, December 10, 2019. Jim, the son of James Burns and Edith Perry Burns was born on April 14, 1927 in Wheeling, West Virginia, a town which he loved and considered home for his entire life. Jim spent many of his school years in and around New York City, where he attended Stuyvesant High School. He especially excelled at Latin and won city-wide academic contests in that area of study. At age 18, before the end of World War II, he enlisted in the U. S. Navy, but never saw combat. Subsequently, he attended the University of Virginia, earning his Masters degree in geology in 1950. Shortly thereafter, he joined an Army Reserves unit, fully expecting to be sent to Korea, but that never happened. In November 1950, Jim married Jaquelin Lee Caskie of Charlottesville, with whom he had three boys: James K. (Jasper), who lives in Waynesboro, Virginia with his wife Maia Joy Oden; David Cary, who lives near Wardensville, West Virginia with his wife Jill and their two sons Paul and Toby, and Philip Ambler, who passed away in 2015. The first half of his career, mostly with the U.S. Geological Survey, was devoted to applications of earth sciences in solving military problems. He had extended field assignments in Alaska, Svalbard (Norway), Germany, Iran, and Vietnam. He also held a variety of research, editorial, and managerial positions. His later career was in environmental geology. He managed a program of environmental resource inventories for the civil works programs of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Returning to the Geological Survey, he was involved in the environmental impact analysis of various mineral developments on the public lands and the outer continental shelf. He retired as chief of the Survey’s office of environmental affairs. Jim spent many years caring for his wife Jackie during her long illness following a stroke. His family members remember his patient and tender loving care for her during the final years of their 56-year marriage. For several years following retirement, Jim was a member and exhibiting artist in the Enamelists Gallery at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, Virginia. He later served 3½ years as a Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) assisting abused and neglected children in Albemarle County, Virginia. After Jackie’s passing in 2006, Jim continued to live in Charlottesville before moving to the Summit Square retirement community in Waynesboro in 2012. During these years, he frequently wrote letters expressing his social, political, and environmental concerns to The Daily Progress and News Virginian. These and other writings were also published in his WordPress blog, entitled jimsobservations. Jim also gave several public talks about his experiences aboard a spy ship in the Arctic, supported by his PowerPoint presentations. Jim is remembered as a master of many trades: a brilliant and analytical thinker with a wide range of knowledge; master craftsman and artist with a gift for drawing, painting, and working with wood and metal; an exceptional storyteller who never forgot a joke or a detail of his life, which he lived with tireless interest and gusto. He was warm, generous, forgiving, and insightful with a sweet and radiant smile for all. His wife used to say he was “perfect,” and she wasn’t far wrong. He will live on in the memories of all who knew him. Jim Burns published five books, all available on Amazon or through local bookstores: “The Cold Coasts, A Cold War Caper in the High Arctic,” describing his field assignment aboard a “spy ship” in Svalbard; “Working Class Hero, One Life in a Stalwart Generation, 1884-1954,” about the life and times of his father; “Once Upon a Blog,” with the contents of his blog from August 2013 to September 2014; “Vietnam ‘66, A Personal Experience of the War,” describing a field study of Viet Cong tunnels and their geologic settings; and “Enamel Art, An Appreciation,” describing “an art form, not widely known, that for over three thousand years has produced diverse objects of brilliance, beauty, and remarkable durability.”