Obituaries / LJWorld.com

Obituaries

Interment for Harold Wright "Bert" Bertschinger, 83, Silt, Colo., will be at 9 a.m. Wednesday at East Lawn Palms Memorial Gardens in Tucson with full military honors. Mr. Bertschinger died Saturday, April 28, 2007, at the Colorado State Veterans Center from complications of Parkinson's disease.Mr. Bertschinger was born Sept. 12, 1923, in Lecompton, Kan., the son of William Wright and Nora Dryer Bertschinger. He attended a one-room schoolhouse in Big Springs, Kan., and graduated from Lecompton High School.He served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He received a degree in engineering from Kansas State University, where he was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha and Sigma Chi fraternities.He briefly worked for the Santa Fe Railroad. He worked for IBM as a computer engineer for more than three decades in Topeka, Kan., Endicott, N.Y., Boulder, Colo., and Tucson. He retired in 1984.He was a KSU football fan and a former member of the Moose Lodge in Boulder. He married Shirley E. Carr in 1948. They divorced in 1983.Survivors include three sons, Richard, Nederland, Colo., Alan, Golden, Colo., and Harold II, Sicily, Italy; two daughters, Rebecca Kidd, Silt, and Sharon Morrison, Tucson; 18 grandchildren, Brooke, Michael, Teresa, Matthew, Jonathon, Gideon, Josh, Tim, Ethan, Bryan, Billy, Kristina, Jessica, Samantha, Sara, Aaron, Joseph and Sadie; and 15 great-grandchildren, Olyvia, Savannah, Kyla, Cory, Payton, Aiden, Austin, Thomas Joseph, Ethan, Haley, Rhiannon, Victoria, Brigette, Patrick and Alexis.A daughter, Sue Ackelson, and two sisters, Ruth Schirmer and Wilna Kamproeschroeder, preceded him in death.The family suggests memorial contributions to the National Parkinson's Foundation through Cochran Memorial Chapel, P.O. Box 1048, Meeker, CO 81641.