Michael Jeremy Danbury

1932 - 2021

DANBURY

MICHAEL JEREMY DANBURY

Michael Jeremy Dunlop Checkland Danbury passed away at the age of 89 on November 25, 2021 in his home in Annandale, VA.



Michael (known as Jeremy or Jerry for the first half of his life) was born on January 30, 1932, to George Beresford Checkland Danbury and Jean Constance Danbury (Dunlop) in Gosforth, England. When he was a toddler, the family relocated first to Oxford and later to the London suburb of Gerrards Cross. In Gerrards Cross, he attended Gayhurst Academy where he was notorious for inventive and sometimes dangerous hijinks. When WWII arrived, he experienced it through the eyes of a child, enjoying his new pastime of watching the army train in tanks on the local common. All that ended when the Germans hit London in the infamous bombing campaign known as The Blitz, forcing his mother to flee with Michael first to Ireland and then to her parents' home in Providence, Rhode Island. His father stayed behind fighting as part of London's anti-aircraft brigade rejoining the family after the war.



In the U.S., Michael first attended Moses Brown School and later Portsmouth Abbey School, both as a boarding student. At Portsmouth, he excelled in athletics and was the captain of the soccer team, commodore of the yacht club (he was forgiven for temporarily losing a boat) and played football. He also discovered there a love of the cinema, particularly movies featuring the fetching Jeanne Crain. After Portsmouth, he attended Yale University initially majoring in engineering and then switching to history; while there he also was the head of the Socialist club, the basic tenets of which he would carry with him for the rest of his life.



Cornell Law School followed Yale, and after passing the NY Bar, Michael passed on practicing law and instead went after his dream of flight and joined the U.S. Air Force as a Navigator. He trained at Harlingen AFB in Texas, then flew fighter jets at Mcchord AFB in Tacoma, WA, followed by a tour in search and rescue in Goose Bay, Labrador. It was cold in Labrador, but it was also an exciting time that made for many good tales years later. While in Labrador, he was recruited by the State Department to enter the foreign service as a diplomat. Armed with a smattering of German, he headed off with his first wife Ann Virginia Parker and two young children and joined the Munich Consulate. There he helped the occasional hapless American tourist, expedited visas for Germans, and traveled the continent.



After his Munich tour was complete, Michael chose to stay stateside practicing law until his retirement in the IRS' Office of Chief Counsel. During his early stint there, he also attended George Washington University, earning a masters in corporate taxation law. It was sometime after this that he met and married his second wife Kathleen Burns, and had two more children plus raising her child. Also, while weekdays might be spent weighing in on tricky legal issues, nearly every other weekend he was back up in the skies flying out of Dover AFB with the USAF reserves and now in the C-5 Galaxy, which at the time was the largest plane in the world. The excitement of flying never lost its luster for him, and the comradeship of his squadron's fellows was equally important. It was only when sadly the C-5's navigation system became automated that he retired with the rank of Lt. Colonel.



Michael was a devoted father gamely attending his eldest son's band's punk rock concerts, spending long days in the sun at his eldest daughter's horseback riding events, and, with the help of his stepdaughter, coaching both his youngest daughter and youngest son's soccer teams (they may not have always won, but they sure had fun!). Later in life, he would spend afternoons playing card and board games with the grandkids. He enjoyed the outdoors and was always up for a good hike in the mountains or a short walk in the park. He told bad jokes and sometimes good ones. He was a science junkie and would tell you that he should have been a scientist. And he would have made a good one, because he was just that brilliant. He had a beautiful singing voice, loved opera (preferring the ones where the heroine survives), and the arts. His childhood love of cinema continued throughout his life augmented by foreign detective tv shows enjoyed with his wife by his side. He was consummately late, until in his later years when he suddenly wasn't. He was eccentric, liked to drive around in cars that were much too old and much too dented, had a faint trace of his British accent even in his later years, and was often seen sporting blue and white seersucker suits. He was a news junkie whose collection (or was it hoarding?) of newspapers frequently needed culling by his wife. People often remarked at how friendly and kind he was - and it was true; he just cared about people and wanted everyone to be happy. He lived a vibrant and some would say long life, but it all felt too short.



Michael is survived by his children Elizabeth "Betsy", Christina (David Kief), Thomas (Morgan Currie) and stepdaughter Amy (Mark DeCarlo) and grandchildren Calean Danbury, Isabella, Olivia, and Anastasia DeCarlo, Emmett and Addie Danbury-Kief, Rowan and Cassidy Danbury. He was predeceased by his wife Kathleen and his eldest son Charles "OllO".



Michael will be buried on April 21, 2022 at Arlington National Cemetery with full honors. His funeral mass will commence at 8:45 a.m. at the Old Post Chapel on the Fort Myer army base followed by a graveside ceremony at ANC.



In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in his name to the Sierra Club.