Memorials › Essie Mizell Stripling Burnworth
Essie Mizell Stripling Burnworth
25 Sep 1939 – 4 Feb 2012
| Birth | 25 Sep 1939 |
| Death | 4 Feb 2012 |
| Added by | Bobby Sowell on 07 Jun 2018 |
| FaG | https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/190405113 |
Bio
Essie Stripling Burnworth, who was among the first women to forge a career in systems analysis and information technology, died on February 4, 2012, at her new home in Woodinville, Washington. A 40-plus-year resident of Potomac, MD, she and her husband had moved to the Seattle area in 2011 to be near their younger son Gregory Burnworth and his family. She died just weeks after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She was 72 years old. Essie is survived by her husband of 43 years, Harold Frazer Burnworth, her son Jonathan Burnworth of Potomac, Maryland, her son Gregory Burnworth, Gregory's wife Bettina Burnworth, and their sons Finian and Anekin Burnworth, all of Seattle. Essie Mizell Stripling was born on September 25, 1939 in Midland Texas, a place she always carried with her through her soft accent and impeccable southern manners. She attended high school in Washington, D.C. at what was then Mount Vernon Seminary. After graduating from Wellesley College in 1960, where she majored in physics, Essie began her career in Boston as a systems analyst with Raytheon, where she worked on the lunar lander, moving to D.C. to work for General Electric, and TRW, Inc. Following a hiatus in the early "70's when her two sons were infants, she joined the consulting company CRW, Inc, focusing on information systems for public transportation and energy use. Next she moved into administration, work that she especially cherished, as a technical manager at Logicon, Inc. She retired in March, 2000 from a position managing a project at Northrop Grumman to develop user-centric applications for automated systems. During her last decade, Essie became a devoted volunteer for The American Chestnut Foundation. The TACF's goal is to develop trees resistant to the blight that destroyed some four billion American chestnuts in the 1900's. She played a lead role in founding the Maryland chapter of TACF, served twice as the chapter's President, and was elected the national organization's Secretary and executive board member. She and her husband also regularly joined volunteers at an orchard of surviving chestnuts on Maryland's Sugarloaf Mountain - mowing, caring for the trees and establishing new plantings . Essie also helped bring together the partners who created the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute's American chestnut loaner lab, which has given thousands of students an introduction to the American chestnut story and experience with gel electrophoresis. A 2010 Washington Post article described Essie's hands-on role in connection with the "hypo-virulent soup" developed at the Institute to counteract the blight. Every six weeks, she made new batches of the liquid in a kitchen blender and kept them in her refrigerator until they could be injected into the cankers of affected trees. In recognition of the " indelible mark" that she and her husband had left on the organization, the TACF dedicated a Legacy Tree in their names at their Meadowview Research Farms. Undeterred by the realization that the Foundation's work might take 150 years to be successful, Essie wrote to some friends, "I am very much enjoying making a ripple that will travel for many years beyond me." A celebration of Essie's life will be held at Clydes of Tyson's Corner, 8332 Leesburg Pike, Vienna, VA. at 1 p.m. on Saturday, March 24. Donations in her memory may be sent to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center or to the Maryland chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation. Published in The Washington Post on Mar. 19, 2012
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