James Leithauser

Mr. James Leland Leithauser, passed away on July the 4th, 2019. He was 82 years old. Mr. Leithauser was born in Defiance,OH, 8/22/36. He was the 4th of six kids born to Gerald Horatsius Leithauser and Nora McCreary Leithauser. The family settled in Birmingham, Alabama in 1941. Jim attended John Carroll High School in Birmingham, AL, where he was active in both the Jr. ROTC program and Alabama Air National Guard. He graduated from John Carroll in the spring of 1957 and enrolled at Auburn University, at the time still called Alabama Polytechnic Institute. He immediately fell in love with all things Auburn, especially the football program, and remained a staunch supporter for the rest of his life. Following his sophomore year of college, Jim spent two years serving his country in the United States Army. After an honorable discharge, he returned to his studies at Auburn University. It was then that he met the love of his life, Virginia (Gina) Pearl Bryan. James graduated from Auburn in 1962 with a BS in Math and on August the 26th of the same year, he and Virginia wed.

The couple set up house in Cocoa Beach, Florida where Jim took a job at Cape Canaveral working in the new field of computers. After a few years working at the Cape, Jim, Gina and their young son, James, Jr. moved to Manhattan, NY where Jim started his own computer firm. In 1969 the company was bought by Computer Data Systems Inc., of Washington, D.C. and the family, with new baby Laura in tow, relocated to Bowie, Maryland. They set down roots and quickly added second daughter, Virginia, to their happy family. Jim would remain with CDSI, as a systems analyst, until his retirement in 1998. Though they missed their families in the south, Jim and Gina had a wonderful life raising their children in Bowie and were blessed to have so many amazing neighbors and friends. Sadly, on the 16th of July, 1992, Jim lost his beautiful wife, Gina, to cancer of an unknown origin. When Jim retired from CDSI in 1998 he moved back to Alabama to live with his two widowed sisters and one of his brothers. He would travel back to Maryland often to visit his children and ever expanding brood of grandchildren.

In addition to his parents and his wife, he is predeceased by his two brothers, Donald Gene Leithauser and John Daniel Leithauser, a sister,Loa Leithauser Shivers and a grandson Samuel Bryan Slack. He is survived by sisters Geraldine Leithauser Johnson and Shirley Leithauser Busby, both of Bham, AL, his son James Leland Leithauser, Jr. (Gina) of Severn, MD, his daughters Laura Leithauser Burd (Brad Quint) and Virginia Leithauser Slack (Kevin), and grandchildren James, Leland and Jack Slack and Katherine, Jessica and Charlie Burd, of Ellicott City, MD

He will be interred at Cheltenham Veterans Cemetery, in Cheltenham, Maryland.