John William Burkitt III

John Burkitt died at home in Amherst, New Hampshire on May 19, 2025 after a long illness. He was born on August 29, 1950 in Batavia, Illinois to Donald and Eleanor (Dilworth) Burkitt.

John had a long career as a chemist, engineer, and manager for McDermott, Teradyne, Digital Equipment/Compaq/Hewlett Packard, and others, focusing eventually on Environmental Health and Safety, a departure from his BS in zoology. He travelled extensively, working for weeks or months at a time on all the continents except Antarctica. He loved to tinker and troubleshoot.

John was an enthusiastic member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashua, serving on many committees, singing in the choir, and playing his bass.

John’s retirement passion was the Gate City Bike Coop, which he started as a one man operation at home, then built to a busy organization of many volunteers in a warehouse, all beloved friends. The bike coop receives donated used bicycles, fixes them, and gives them to people who have no other transportation. John loved hearing client success stories. He also taught teenagers at the Boys and Girls Club to repair their own bikes, bridging language barriers with gestures and laughs.

An avid musician, John played upright bass and electric bass his whole life, performing many styles of music with many groups, in recent years The Wide Avenue Cohort, the NH Gay Men’s Chorus, and at church.

John’s white beard and gentle joking manner led him to become a professional Santa Claus. He was tickled when strangers, including medical personnel, recognized him from old Santa photos with their kids.

John is survived by his wife Constantina Marshman of Amherst, NH; stepsons Timothy Cleaveland of Nashua, NH and Bruce Cleaveland of Merrimack, NH; siblings Barbara (Arthur) Zilgitt of Illinois, Sharon (Lowell) Klaisner of California, and Keith (Sun) Burkitt of Illinois; in-laws, extended family and many, many beloved friends, notably the Batavia boys.

We miss his wit, kindness, cleverness, and love.

On June 4 at 7 pm, John’s friends will gather to share stories and memories at the Lawrence Barn Community Center, 28 Depot Rd, Hollis, NH. We hope you will come. There will be a memorial service at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashua in a few months.