Here is Dad's obituary. I think they did o good job on it.

Bruce Barkley Burnham
NEW LIMERICK - Bruce Barkley Burnham passed away June 3, 2011. He was born Dec. 16, 1927, in Clinton, Conn., to Carroll Ackley Burnham and Marjorie Schmelke Burnham. His sister, Barbara Philippe, lives in Bonita Springs, Fla. Bruce graduated from Morgan High School and attended the University of Connecticut and Louisiana State University studying oil geology. In 1946, as a Marine stationed in Guam and Beijing, he worked repatriating Japanese prisoners of war. Bruce was a draftsman for Electric Boat, New London, Conn., and for Hughes Aircraft, Tucson, Ariz. In 1956, after several years bent over the drafting table and eager to feel the desert sun on his back, Bruce joined the Border Patrol, serving in Texas, upper New York state, Miami and Vermont. He went on to become an Immigration Inspector in Maine and Freeport, Bahamas. In 1949 Bruce married Dorothy Darnstaedt. Bruce and Dottie crafted an original and unconventional life, living for a time on a schooner in Noank and without running water in Vermont, but loved best their red farmhouse in New Limerick. They raised their children to be open-minded, unconventional thinkers committed to a highly personal view of happiness. Bruce was an intellectual, a craftsman, a botanist and gunsmith. He crafted muzzle-loading rifles and ring boxes, built furniture, HAM radios and fireplaces, carved scrimshaw and made ships in bottles. He enjoyed nature in all her forms and was widely read, particularly in the fields of history and science. Endless curiosity, a rare sense of humor and limited patience with fools were the hallmarks of this unique man. Learning was his passion, dogma his antithesis. Bruce opened his home and his heart to those who sought shelter or knowledge. His wife, children and grandchildren love him dearly and will seek to live up to his ideals of intellectual vigor, scientific inquiry and reliance on the natural world to provide answers to life's questions. As a friend or relative of Bruce's you will have feasted on milk weed, paddled a canoe and sailed it home, pondered the origin of boulders and come to understand your place in the universe. To live in the world was not enough without the endless quest to explore and understand it. Bruce is survived by his sister; his wife; his children, Brett, Bryn, Dana, Dori and Nathan; his eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. There will be an open house in honor of Bruce 3-6 p.m. Tuesday, June 7, at Burnham farm, County Road, New Limerick. Friends may make gifts in Bruce's memory to Cary Library or Houlton Humane Society, care of Dunn Funeral Home, 11 Park St., Houlton, ME 04730. Online guest book and condolences at www.dunnfuneral.com.

Cast my ashes to the wind, and let my soul go free. Cast my ashes to the wind, And hope the best for me. Let me drift on wind and tide, mountain and forest and ocean's shore, cast my ashes to the wind, that I might be with those gone before. - David Darnstaedt April 17, 2001

Published in Bangor Daily News on June 6, 2011