OBITUARY: ARCHIE L. BURKE

Submitted by: Leona Johnson, bell_crazy2000 -at- yahoo.com

Source: "The Cowlitz County Advocate", Cowlitz Co., Washington.  15 Nov 1956


Archie L. Burke, 32, resident here the past two years, died at his home south of
town Saturday night of a shotgun wound in the head, apparently self-inflicted.
The body was discovered about 10:30 o'clock by two Sims boys, Burke's teen-age
nephews, who heard the shot and went over to investigate. They found Burke in a
puddle of blood, and came to town to tell Marshal George Eaton that they thought
there had been a suicide. Eaton was the first officer to reach the scene,
followed by sheriff's deputies. Burke lived alone in a small house near that of
his father, Sylvester Burke, about two miles south of town. He was a
Weyerhaueser Timber Company employee and had worked that day with Al Nelson
loading logs. He had spent the evening in town and went home shortly before
10:30. Burke was born May 20, 1924, at Dallas, Iowa. He was a World War II
veteran. The survivors other than his father, are five brothers, Donald in U.S.
Army, Hilbert in U.S. Navy, and Robert, Clifford and Richard in Iowa; and five
sisters, Mrs. Lucille Sims of Castle Rock, Mrs. Virginia Collins of Port
Orchard, Mrs. Norma Jean Birkenholtz and Mrs. Ruth Miller of Newton, Iowa. and
Genevieve Hess of Myrtle Creek, Oregon. The funeral services were held this
Thursday afternoon at two o'clock in the Ditlevsen-Moore chapel in Kelso with
the Rev. Martin Skarbo officiating. Interment was in the Hubbard cemetery.