February 11, 1921 ~ November 17, 2010

Ron was the second son of Mary Catherine Sawle and Colin Campbell Burnside of Gordon, New South Wales, Australia.

He was predeceased by all of his siblings and by his youngest daughter.

He is survived by two daughters, eight grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and nieces and nephews in Australia and the United States.

Ron attended Knox Grammar School near Sydney until the age of 16 when he began work in airplane factories, first near Sydney, then in Melbourne. He went to the United States in 1941 to work in airplane factories there, soon moving on to similar work in India during the war. He returned to the U.S. and served in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He parachuted from a crashing B-24 on a training flight over Oregon in 1945 and lived to tell the tale to Kamloops schoolchildren in the next century. He was hoping to be sent into combat, when the war ended.

He married in 1945. He and his wife returned to Australia in 1946 where he worked for the Coca Cola Company. The family returned to the United States in 1951. His work there included boat building and technical writing, among many other activities. He emigrated to Canada in 1961, again building boats, and working as a machinist for a mine. He remarried in 1967 and retrained as a teacher. He taught in the Kamloops area for a few years in the early seventies. On his own from 1991, he was active in the Kamloops chapters of the ham radio club, reviving his interest in radio from the war days; and with the Baden Powell League, continuing his life-long participation with Scouting.

Ron's family wishes to express our thanks to the neighbors and business people of Kamloops who looked out for him in his last years of independent living. Special thanks to his loyal friend Ken McEachern who was an important support while Ron lived alone, and who continued to visit him when he went into care. We are particularly grateful to the staff of Kamloops Seniors Village who took loving, devoted, steadfast care of him from early 2005 until his death.

Condolences may be sent to the family in care of Personal Alternatives Funeral Services, Kamloops.
kamloops@pafs.net. 250-554-2324.