Obituaries
Obituaries
Wednesday, September 27, 2006; Page B09
Joan Oden BartonSecretary, Homemaker
Joan Oden Barton, 70, a retired secretary with the CIA, died Sept. 10 of multiple sclerosis at Inova Fairfax Hospital. She was a resident of Vienna.
Mrs. Barton was born in the District. In 1953, she graduated from Anacostia High School, where she was a member of the National Honor Society. After attending the Washington School for Secretaries, she became a secretary with General Electric's patent division in the District. When she and her family moved to Vienna in 1958, she became a homemaker.
When her children were grown, she reentered the secretarial workforce, first with Economy Forms Corp. and then for the CIA. She was with the agency from 1986 until her retirement in 1996.
She was a longtime member of the Great Falls ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mrs. Barton also did volunteer work with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and enjoyed playing bridge.
Survivors include her husband of 51 years, Robert A. Barton Jr. of Vienna; three children, Scott Barton of New York City, Kent Barton of Sterling and Barrie Barton of Roanoke; and three grandsons.
Robert Clay BurgessArmy Lieutenant Colonel
Robert Clay Burgess, 81, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and director of the education budget in the old Department of Health, Education and Welfare, died of cancer Sept. 12 at his home in Arlington, Vt.
Col. Burgess was born in Newark and raised in Teaneck. He wanted to attend West Point so badly that as a 14-year-old Boy Scout, he bicycled 100 miles to visit the military academy. He graduated from West Point in 1945. He received a master's degree in business administration from Syracuse University in 1959.
He served first in Japan during the post-World War II occupation and was a commander of a field artillery battery in the Korean War. He was an instructor in the Army Officer Candidate School and a senior aide to a general in postwar Germany. His last military assignment was with the Defense Communications Agency, where he helped created the hotline from Washington to Moscow before he retired from the Army in 1965.
Col. Burgess then went to work as a civilian with the Defense Communications Agency as its budget officer and chief of financial management.
He switched to HEW, working there as head of its education budget department until 1979, then retired a second time and moved from Annandale to Vermont. He enjoyed photographing landscapes, which he turned into a business selling notecards and framed photos.
His first wife, Alice Burgess, died in 1990; their daughter, Susan Burgess, died in 1984.
Survivors include his wife of 15 years, Miriam Taylor Burgess of Arlington, Vt.; two children from his first marriage, Gail Marie Burgess of Wayne, Pa., and Robert Clay Burgess Jr. of East Dorset, Vt., and Oakton; three stepdaughters, Anne Taylor Morrow of Irving, Tex., and Kathy Taylor Chase and Susan Ekstrom, both of Shreveport, La.; six grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
