In Memory of

David

Burchfield

Obituary for David Burchfield

Wendell David Burchfield, 64, of Clinton, Mississippi passed away September 9, 2019, surrounded by his family. He is survived by his wife Cindy, daughters Ansley Burchfield and Deidre Graham (Aaron), and sisters Becky Lindsey, Lois Deupree, and Ruth Hay. He is preceded in death by his parents Wendell Earl and Velma Lois Burchfield (Caldwell) of Ethel. Funeral services are scheduled for 10 AM Thursday, September 12 at Culpepper Funeral Home Chapel with burial to follow at Burchfield Family Cemetery in Ethel. Reverend Chester Carlisle will officiate. Visitation will be 5-7 PM Wednesday, September 11 at Culpepper Funeral Home in Kosciusko.
David worked as an Environmental Engineer with the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality for the past 29 years. He graduated from Mississippi State University in 1976 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering and from East Holmes Academy in 1972. He grew up in Ethel, MS where he spent his youth working on his family’s dairy farm.
When we began to write the obituary for David, as his family there was only one message about his life that was truly important for us to convey: to tell the world how incredibly blessed we are to have had him in our lives.
David and Cindy were married 38 years on August 22. There is nothing in their lives together that they did not share. If you gave him a single cookie, he would take it home to give her half. His daughters feel so fortunate to have grown up in such a home - enveloped in the spirit of love and sharing with it as an unshakeable constant in our lives.
David was intensely curious about everything. He never stopped learning. He would take things apart just to see how they worked. He noticed the smallest details and viewed everything from a different perspective. When we watched the last solar eclipse together, while everyone else looked up at the sky, he was the one to notice the strange shadows cast by the change of light on the ground.
He was a child of the outdoors. David spent much of his early years in the swamps and woods of his family’s property. He hunted, fished, and shot guns, but mostly he just wanted to be outside, enjoying the beauty of the world - sometimes beyond too, on the nights he spent stargazing.
David loved working on cars. When we think of the vehicles that best represent him they are the 1975 Oldsmobile Cutlass of his youth and the 1992 Jeep Grand Cherokee which he still drove. He loved his Jeep and given its mileage, we think it went down the road by the sheer force of his will.
He was an avid reader – fantasy, science-fiction, westerns, but really a little bit of everything! As for entertainment, David mostly loved to laugh. He loved to laugh always, and his sense of humor is one of the things we will miss most. One of the best things about David though, was that he never forgot how to play. Our whole family is one who plays together. We had regular family game nights, where 3 AM would come and 12 hours would still not be enough time together.
David was the kind of man to reach out to a person in need of a friend, to brush the hair of a disabled person, to wait in the parking lot before he pulled away to make sure you got in your car safely, to bring you soup when you were sick, to change your flat tire on the side of the road, to hear of the death of someone he hardly knew or had not seen in years and still be moved to tears… all this and so very much more. A force of quiet good has gone from the world. We are so thankful for the time the Lord gave us with such a child of his as this and we find comfort in the belief that we will all be reunited again one day.
All this to give you some idea of what an amazing man David was. Every day he made his children feel that they were truly special and could accomplish anything and they knew he was proud of them. Every day his wife knew just how beloved and treasured she was. At the end of our days, nothing really matters but love because it is the only thing that lasts. David Burchfield was a man rich in love.
- Cindy, Deidre, and Ansley.