Richard and Jean Burrows

Jean A. Burrows (95) and Richard W. "Rit" Burrows (97) her husband of 70 years, passed away peacefully in their home within 8 days of each other on February 6th and 14th. They had an extraordinary 70+ years together playing Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, Liszt, Mozart, Gershwin and other composers on their 2 grand pianos. Jean was born in Denver and graduated from East High School. She shared her musical gift by teaching two generations of music students and was active in the Foothills Music Association. Jean served in the Red Cross during World War II and enjoyed gardening. She was politically independent, believed in science, was pro-choice, honest to a fault, and had a great empathy for people, except for a few politicians. She will be greatly missed by all who knew her. R.W. (Rit) Burrows, grew up in south Denver and graduated from the Colorado School of Mines with a degree in metallurgy. As a young man Rit was a technical mountain climber and competitive ski racer, winning the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Championship in 1941, Climbing-wise, his first ascents include the north face of Vestal Peak, the north face of Lone Eagle Peak and the first traverse of the Three Trinities in the Grenadier Mountains of Colorado. He was an important contributor in the engineering world, initially in concrete research and in his second career as an aerospace engineer. During his tenure at Martin Marietta Rit was highly regarded as a principal architect of Martin's Titan I, II & III missile programs as well as it's Skylab project. Retiring in 1979 as Manager of Systems Control. He received the Wason Medal from The American Concrete Institute for the best technical paper in 1960 and again in 2001 for his work on improving the longevity of concrete. Rit's recommended cement was used for the Three Gorges Dam in China, the world's largest construction project and his 86 research papers were translated into the Chinese language and published throughout China by Dr. Li Wenwei.. In 1990 Rit became interested in painting and sculpturing. His kinetic (moving) sculptures were juried into the North American Sculpture Exhibition for 1992, 1993 and 1994. Rit and Jean both loved music. On April 1, 1973, Rit was the piano soloist with the Jefferson Symphony Orchestra in the performance of his Variations on the Theme, "How dry I am". Rit and Jean are survived by their children Scott, Robin, Art and Jeff; and grandparents of eleven. A celebration of life will be held on May 19 at 4:30 PM for friends and family at their home in Lakewood, Colorado. Please contact Jeff Burrows at 303-902-7742 or Scott Burrows at 720-233-6904 for information