Life story written by his mother. Thomas Anthony Burke III died on February 7, 2025 under hospice care for cancer at his home in Street, Maryland. Tom was born on April 25, 1955 in Havre de Grace, Md. to the late Thomas Burke, Jr. and Barbara Lee Davis Burke who survives him.. He attended Highland Elementary School, and in 1973 he graduated from North Harford High School where he was a member of the band and the National Honor Society. On weekends and sometimes after school, he worked at Whiteford Pharmacy. Tom enjoyed being in the Boy Scout troop from Mt. Vernon Church.

Tom enlisted in the Army in September 1973. From his basic training at Ft. Dix, New Jersey, he was assigned to Ft. Monmouth, New Jersey, where he was sent to the U.S. Armed Forces School of Music in Norfolk, VA for six months. He returned to the 389th Band at Ft. Monmouth until he was sent to the 8th Army Band in Korea. He met his future wife, Kim Myong Ok in Korea. They were married in Seoul, in 1978. They returned home in 1979 to Ft. Monmouth. where he stayed until he went to his last assignment in Kaiserslautern, Germany, with the U. S. Army Europe Band. SFC Burke retired in 1993 after 20 years in the U.S. Army.

Back home on the family farm, he and Myong built a house next to his parents' home in Street, where he became a hay farmer with a few chickens and a dog. He worked at Harford Mutual Insurance Company in Bel Air, Maryland until he retired in 2020.

Tom was a lifetime member of St. Mary's of the Assumption Church, Pylesville, where he was an altar boy until he joined the army. After his army retirement, he was an active member of the Delta Fish and Game Assoc. and a member of the Harley's Owners' Group motorcycle club.

Tom is survived by his wife, Myong; mother, Barbara Burke; sisters, Irene Yeakel

(Bill), Mary Collins (Scott); nephews, William Collins and John Collins; great nephew, Theodore

Collins, great nieces, Gwendolyn and Charlotte Collins; foster brother, Khamsith Phimmasone

(Bouason), foster nephew, Christopher, and foster niece, Vanissa.

There will be a combined funeral Mass at St. Mary's, Pylesville, on Saturday, February 15 at 11:00 AM for Thomas III and his father, Thomas A. Burke, followed by a reception in the church hall.