John Lyon Burnside III (1916 - 2008)

Born 2 Nov 1916 in Seattle, King, Washington, United States

Ancestors

Died 14 Sep 2008 at age 91 in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States

Biography

John Burnside III is Notable.

John was born in 1916. His father John abandoned the family early in John's life, and he spent some of his early life in orphanages. He served in the Navy sometime before WWII.

Kaleidoscopes

In 1944, John graduated from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) with a bachelor's in physics. In the 1960s, John founded and operated a kaleidoscope factory in Southern California. In 1971, he moved the factory to New Mexico. The factory burned down in June 1973.

John is credited as the inventor of the teleidoscope, darkfield kaleidoscope, and the Symmetricon. According to Wikipedia, because "he [John] rediscovered the math behind kaleidoscope optics, makers of optically correct kaleidoscopes sold in the United States paid him royalties for decades."

Activism

John, alongside Harry Hay, formed the Circle of Loving Friends in California in 1965. In 1979, he co-founded the Radical Faeries in New Mexico.

Relationships

John married Edith Sinclair during the early 1940s. They divorced in 1963.

John met Harry in 1963, and they remained a couple for the rest of their lives. While same-sex marriage was not legalized before Harry passed, the couple are marked as married on Wikitree to show the significance of their relationship.

Sources

• Find A Grave: Memorial #30092003
• "United States, GenealogyBank Historical Newspaper Obituaries, 1815-2011", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q578-M8PH : 29 July 2020), Dennis Mciellan and John Burnside, 2008.

See also

• "John Burnside" on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Burnside_(inventor) )
• Wikidata: Item Q6223999, en:Wikipedia