Howard William Burch, 97, a resident of Provincetown and North Truro for most of his life, a retired master electrician and former owner of Sea Surf, a Beach Point motel, died on February 8, 2014 at Seashore Point. It was a time of dignity, peace and calm for him, passing away in a manner much like he had lived his life. His family was with him to offer words of love and reassurance. He was the son of Maud Ruth Baker Burch, an artist, who died at 25 in an unusual roller skating accident when he was 2 , and Charles William Burch, Jr., owner, operator, and baker in chief at Burch’s Bakery, a local institution well-known for its famous Dutch oven where he baked bread in accordance with President Roosevelt’s request, for Vitamin B-1 enriched bread and flour as part of the program for national defense to strengthen people of the nation for the hardships which they would endure. He is survived by his daughter Nancy Ruth and her husband Albert Silva and their son Jason Silva and his wife Sharmelle, and daughter Adrienne and her husband Shane Burhoe, and his son John Burch, his wife Nancy, and their son Dustin Burch. Howard was the proud great-grandfather to Avril, Jasmine, Mitchell, Lincoln, Aiden and Riley. He is survived by his sister, Mildred Ruth Allison, 99, of Kingston, New York, and her children Jim Burch Allison, his wife Suzanne, and Francis Burch Allison and wife, Joan and their families. Howard is also survived by his brother-in-law, Reggie Enos, 90, who lived with him at Seashore Point, and a well-known Provincetown shellfish warden, his wife Carol and their family, Glenn Enos, Scott and his wife Christie Enos, Stacie Enos and Andy Lindera and their families. Howard is pre-deceased by his wife of 64 years, Florence Enos, his beloved high school sweetheart who graduated with him from Provincetown High School. They married in Washington, D.C., in the Capital, 20 days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. “Flo” was Provincetown’s first war baby, born while her father John Enos was in France with the American Expeditionary Force and the 102nd Infantry. According to her mother, Lena Enos, she gained a little notoriety in the local paper as the wedding news was reported as, “Provincetown’s First World War Baby Is Second World War Bride.” Two days after the wedding, Howard, a reservist in the Army, was called into immediate active duty to prepare for, and ultimately, fight in Europe. Howard, an easy-going, humorous man, was fond of quoting through the years, “The honeymoon was over!” With the world on the brink of war, the light-hearted statement became more than true, for the newly-weds, and for the country.
Howard is also pre-deceased by his brother Francis W. Burch, an accountant for the historic DuPont family, and wife Edna, of Wilmington, Delaware.
At Provincetown High School, Howard was an athlete, playing baseball and basketball, and as a senior, captaining the football team, as well as being class vice-president. His father had plans for him to stay in the bakery business, but on the insistence of his sister Millie, and Howard’s own self-determination, he went on to study electrical engineering at the University of New Hampshire, hitch-hiking back and forth to Provincetown as often as possible, until he bought his first car for $10.00. Howard used it proudly to bring Florence to a Military Arts Ball at UNH. He and his daughter Nancy have shared UNH as their alma mater.
Howard honorably served in the active federal service of the Army of the United States, Company B, 329th Infantry, and with General Patton’s Third Army during World War II, from June 1942 to June, 1946. During his military career he attended the Infantry Combat School at Fort Benning, Georgia and subsequently became an Infantry Unit commander. Other schooling included Barrage Balloon Training at Camp Tyson, Tennessee, with the objective of the balloons being used to deny low level airspace to enemy aircraft. He completed AAA training at Camp Davis for Radio and Searchlight operations, and the Ballistic Research Lab for electronics, for the operation of equipment to operate muzzle velocities. As 1st Lieutenant, he was leader of a Rifle Platoon, a Communications Officer, and in Austria, a Rifle Company Commander where he was directly responsible for the operation of a displaced persons camp of 4,000 people. As a Communications Officer, he supervised communications for a Coast Artillery Group as 2nd Lieutenant, coordinating all communications, radio and telephone, in field problems and in training throughout the group headquarters and lower units which included automatic weapons, gun and searchlight battalions. His communication officer duties included responsibilities for rifle battalions in combat, and all communications, wire, radio and visual to all companies and adjacent units. Howard received a Combat Infantryman’s Badge, A European-African-Middle Eastern Service medal, an American Service medal, and a WWII Victory Medal. His civilian occupation in the 1940’s was as an electrical engineer, working on electrical equipment used in ballistic work. He worked at the Naval Gun Factory in Washington, D.C., correcting blueprints, and performing experiments on metals. He supervised and maintained electrical test equipment for Army telephones and performed research and development work on sound powered telephones and headsets. Honorably discharged from active duty in 1946, he remained in the Army Reserves until 1952. He attended Georgetown University School of Law in Washington, D.C . and worked for the U.S. Patent Office before he and Florence decided to return home to Provincetown. He often commented in his life that “War is hell!”, but as he and all the other American veterans of his generation did, he answered the call, faced great odds, and won the war, “united by a common purpose, and also by common values – duty, honor, economy, courage, service , love of family and country, and above all responsibility for oneself”, as Tom Brokaw in The Greatest Generation aptly phrased it. In a Veteran’s story written in his honor, Deborah Minsky, a Banner correspondent wrote, “His story speaks of family love, patriotism, dedication to obligations beyond oneself and inherent optimism in the midst of horror. While in Europe fighting with the American Expeditionary Forces and later as part of the post-war occupation, Lt. Howard Burch lived through intense action and witnessed the unspeakable.”
As a community member, Howard has been a member of the Provincetown Lions Club for 33 years, from 1961 to 1994, and president for two years, 1964 and 1965, and on the Board of Corporators of Seamen’s Bank. He was also a Mason, a longstanding member of King Hiram’s Lodge in Provincetown, where he proudly received a 50 year Veterans Medal.
Friends and family are invited to join us for prayers in the Chapel on the hill in the Catholic Cemetery on Saturday, February 15th at 12:30 p.m., Provincetown.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial donations may be made in Howard’s memory to Seashore Point Residents Fund, 100 Alden Street, Provincetown, MA, The Lion’s Club, P.O. Box 876 , Provincetown, MA, or King Hiram’s Lodge, P.O. Box 854, Provincetown, MA.