James Hunter Burke

[See "Service Schedule" tab for specifics on January 4, 2025 remembrances.]

About Jim

Jim was a loving husband, father, deacon, and friend to all he met. 

Born in Plainfield, New Jersey on Bastille Day 1938 to Harold J. and Elizabeth Y. Burke, Jim was raised in Westfield, New Vernon, and Chatham. Harold Burke was a securities dealer and descendant of 17th c. Acadian settlers, and Elizabeth Burke was a piano instructor from a mixed Pennsylvania German - Irish family. His parents reared Jim as Catholic.

In 1960 Jim graduated from Virginia Tech, where he majored in EE and served in the Corps. Following peacetime Army service, he joined Western Electric and earned an MBA at NYU’s School of Business. He served at FDIC from 1976 to 2002, where he participated in the Continental Illinois bank rescue in 1984 and led an internal audit team during and after the expansion of the agency due to the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 90s. Following Federal retirement he provided bookkeeping services to area small businesses including Piano Craft, and expanded his woodworking hobby, music appreciation, and sailing on the Chesapeake. He greatly enjoyed spending time with his two granddaughters in the past nine years.

Jim married Diane Henriksen in New York in 1966 and they raised two children in Maryland. In the mid 1970s Jim became a born-again Christian through experiencing the Catholic Charismatic Revival at local parishes including St. Patrick's and St. Raphael's, and in the 1990s he and Diane joined the Redland Baptist Church. Jim loved to keep busy at Redland, where he sang in the choir and launched the English as a Second Language program. 

He was a very active walker in his Candlewood neighborhood daily. He would smile and wave to his neighbors and stop to talk or share a joke.

Jim was above all an amazing human who loved everyone he met and showed God’s love to the world through his kind natured heart and generosity. He will be dearly missed by his wife Diane, son David, daughter Michele, brother Peter, daughter-in-law Marina, son-in-law Asoka, and granddaughters Sophia and Anna.

In lieu of flowers, kindly make donations in Jim's name to World Vision and/or Redland Baptist Church. 

Care entrusted to Thibadeau Mortuary Service, p.a., Gaithersburg, MD, 301-495-4950, www.InterFaithFunerals.com.