Richard Theodore "Ted" Burch

Richard Theodore Burch, always known to his family and friends as Ted, was born in Virginia on March 21, 1931, to Doris Katherine Fisher Burch and Paul Randolph Burch, a biology professor at Radford University. He had two older brothers, G. David Burch and John Bayard Burch; a younger brother, Donald C. Burch; and a younger sister, Mary Sharon Forsht-Tucker, who is now his only surviving sibling. His family lived in Radford, Virginia, in a large house with a barn, orchard, pasture, and a clay tennis court on which the kids used to play tennis barefooted.
Ted graduated from high school at the age of sixteen, after which he attended Virginia Polytech and then Randolph Macon College. In 1950, at the age of nineteen, he joined the army, where he worked in Radio Telecommunications, which suited his abilities and inclinations. He left the army April 10, 1953, as a corporal, and then went to the University of Richmond for two years. He had wanted to major in physics, but found he could get through in a couple of years with a math major, so he minored in physics. He was elected to Pi Mu Epsilon, the mathematics honors society, in 1955, and inducted into Phi Beta Kappa in 1956. He graduated in the summer of 1956.
He went to work for the National Security Agency in 1956, thanks largely to his Army experience, and kept this job for the rest of his career. His job at NSA was the first time he used a computer, an ERA 1101 from Engineering Research Associates, a likely predecessor to UNIVAC. They programmed it using a punch tape; it had 32K of memory, stored on a rotating drum. He worked on the Stretch/Harvest computer project in the 1960s, one of the early large scale machines. He bought his first home personal computer, a TRS-80, in 1977; when he needed a word processor for it, he simply wrote one himself.
He met Janis Derry at the home of friends while they were both working in Washington, DC, and they married on March 16, 1957. When their children, Andrew and Paula, were small, they bought a house in Howard County Maryland, near the city of Laurel, in 1961. After several years in their house, Ted and Jan were able to buy the vacant lot behind their house, and built a clay tennis court on it. Ted lived in this house for the rest of his life.
Ted was an unusually involved father for the time, and changed his work schedule to accommodate Jan's school schedule after she went back to college part-time, going to work in the mornings and evenings so as to have afternoons free. He would often spend afternoons outside doing yard work and tennis court construction with his two children, and, later, playing tennis or teaching them to drive. He spent a lot of time in Paula's childhood on teaching her computer logic, and, for fun, simple cryptanalysis.
He and Jan loved to go camping, first with their kids and later just the two of them. Favorite camping areas included Port St. Joe State Park in Florida, where they spent a week every spring into the 1970s, Catoctin Mountain Park in Maryland, and Trap Pond State Park in Delaware. They drove their camper from Maryland to Houston for Paula's wedding in 1989, and again in 1995, and drove it to a family beach house in Alabama for a week in each of many consecutive summers, to spend time there with both of their children and their grandchildren.
Ted retired early at age 55, in 1986. He kept busy with playing tennis, working on his computer, and reading. Learning Spanish from books and tapes, and to a lesser extent German, Italian, and Japanese, was a lifelong hobby for him. He enjoyed growing great expanses of violets, mint, moss, lily of the valley, grape hyacinths, and many other plants in his lawn. He fed and provided water to the wild birds, squirrels and rabbits at his house twice a day for many years, right up until the end; there are four rabbits living under a large azalea bush at the corner of his carport. He enjoyed spending time watching a variety of different sports on television with his son Andy.
When Jan developed COPD and then lung cancer, Ted took great care of her at home until her death in 2014. He continued to live independently in his home. He was surprised by reaching the age of 94, since his parents had died at the ages of 59 and 70, and repeatedly expressed that he was happy to have made it so far, though he knew, he said, that at his age he could go anytime.
On Friday, June 13, Ted fell in his home and could not get up. In spite of physical and occupational therapy, he was never able to stand up on his own again. He said his main health problem was his lack of a sense of balance. After three weeks of increasing weakness and no improvement to his balance or mobility, he went home to his own house on Monday, July 14, where he died peacefully on the evening of July 17, 2025.
He is survived by his two children, Andrew and Paula, his sister Mary Sharon Forsht-Tucker, his two grandchildren Helena and Peter, son-in-law Matt Marks, and many nieces, nephews, and cousins.
Instead of an immediate local memorial service, the family will be creating an ebook and printed book about his life, to share with all those who loved Ted. Please send reminiscences, stories, appreciations, and/or photos to rtburch+memories@gmail.com (note the plus sign, which is important), or contact Paula to give an oral contribution.
In October, there will be a private ceremony of spreading Ted and Jan's ashes in Perdido Bay, Alabama; please contact Paula if you would like to attend.
In lieu of flowers, contributions in Ted's name may be made to the National Audubon Society or the American Civil Liberties Union, or to your favorite charity supporting impoverished children.