Charles Lee Burwell, 98, of Millwood, Va., a former New Canaan resident and police commissioner, passed away peacefully on Feb. 26, 2016 at Westminster Canterbury, surrounded by his family.
Charles Lee Burwell
He was born Sept. 24, 1917 at Carter Hall in Millwood, the son of John Townsend Burwell and Rosalie Leslie Wheat Burwell.
Mr. Burwell earned a B.A. in history and literature at Harvard College in 1939, and later, in 1975, an M.A. in education at Fairfield University.
Upon graduation from Harvard, he moved to Paris, France to begin graduate studies at the Sorbonne in the autumn of 1939. However, World War II broke out that September and Burwell proceeded to drive an ambulance for the Comite Americain de Secours Civil in the area of the Maginot Line. He subsequently left Marseilles in March of 1940 and travelled to Shanghai by way of Suez.
Burwell found life in the International Settlement of Shanghai so inviting that he took a marketing job promoting the sale of oil products in China. Because he was at that time relatively fluent in French, Burwell was sent to head up an office in the Indo-Chinese port of Haiphong. After the Japanese military occupied the region in September of 1940, he returned home.
In November of 1941, less than a month before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Burwell was commissioned an Ensign in U.S. Naval Intelligence. His initial assignments were as boarding officer in Norfolk, Virginia, and in Aruba, the Dutch West Indies.
In 1943, he was ordered back to Washington for assignment to the 8th Amphibious Force in Plymouth, England to help land the VII Army Corps on the coast of France. There, as a 26-year-old member of General Eisenhower’s staff, he helped plan the amphibious assault on Utah Beach in Normandy.
He subsequently helped plan the landings on the beach at St. Raphael in Southern France, on the shore of the Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines, and on Okinawa, Japan. To read more about Mr. Burwell’s involvement in D-Day, see this article on the Library of Congress website.
Mr. Burwell retired in January 1946 as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve.
That same year, he opened offices in Shanghai as the founding president of Burwell, Allen & Co., an import-export firm. When the Communists took over, he moved the offices to Hong Kong. Later, with Jim Thompson of The Thai Silk Co., of Bangkok, he formed a new company, Thaibok Fabrics, Ltd., to import Thai silks to the United States.
Returning to New York, he helped arrange distribution of Thai silks, along with other cottage industry fabrics from East and South Asia, through nine showrooms across the country. His company became famous when his Thaibok silks were used to create the costumes for the 1956 film “The King and I”, which won an Oscar for costume design. During this time, Burwell also served as a director of the American Craft Council, based in New York.
In 1953, Mr. Burwell married his best friend, Natalie Benedict, a member of the editorial staff of Mademoiselle magazine.
They acquired a home in Darien, where he was elected to the Board of Selectmen. Later, when they moved nearby to New Canaan, he was appointed police commissioner.
They were blessed with two wonderful children, a son, Carter Benedict Burwell, an award-winning composer of musical scores for dozens of movies, and a daughter, Belinda Lee Burwell, a veterinarian and a founder of the Valley Emergency Veterinary Clinic in Winchester, and Wildlife Veterinary Care in Clarke County.
In the 1960s, Burwell became increasingly concerned with the effects of unrestricted development he saw in the suburbs of New York, which he feared would eventually impact his native Clarke County, Virginia. So he began working on this issue with his cousin, Belle van Lennep, who was also residing in Connecticut, and together they formed the Burwell-van Lennep Foundation in 1968, a charitable land trust of approximately 1,000 acres near the Shenandoah River in Clarke County, Virginia.
After Thaibok Fabrics, Ltd. was sold in 1972, Burwell taught U.S. history, government, and Asian studies at Darien High School.
In 1978, he and Natalie retired to The Vineyard, the Burwell home in Clarke County, Virginia.
He was co-founder of the Clarke County Library, and president of its Advisory Council. He was a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Shenandoah Valley, the Shenandoah University Community History Fellows, and the Winchester Torch Club. He also served on the Boards of the Clarke County Historical Association, the Lord Fairfax Community College, and Historic Long Branch.
He is survived by his son, Carter Burwell with his wife Christine Sciulli of New York City; his daughter, Belinda Burwell, with her husband James Klenkar of Millwood, Virginia; and five grandchildren, Anna Klenkar, Stephen Klenkar, Tycho Burwell, Tor Burwell, and Greta Rose Burwell.
He was preceded in death by his wife, Natalie, and his brother, John Townsend Burwell Jr.
Arrangements for a memorial service are to follow.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to Wildlife Veterinary Care, a 501c3 charity, at P.O. Box 288, Millwood, VA 22646 or on the organization’s website.
Online condolences may be left at the Jones Funeral Homes website.
Also, a guest book can be signed online here.