George F. Burrows; Founding Member of the ACLU

George F. Burrows, a founding member in 1920 of the American Civil Liberties Union, is dead at age 89.

Burrows, who died of a brain tumor Monday in a Waltham nursing home, was described as a talented oddball whose passions ranged from social justice to Sherlock Holmes.

He was a New Deal Democrat who served as an early president of the Community Church of Boston, the first church to demand a fair trial for Sacco and Vanzetti. He also raised money to help defend the nine black Scottsboro Boys in the famous 1931 rape case.

“My house was filled with causes,” said his son, the actor and author Orson Bean, from his home in Venice, Calif. “One day we would have the people in from the radical organizations, the next day we’d have some typical Irish pols from the local Democratic organization.

“More different kinds of people liked him than anyone else I’ve ever known.”

Born in Somerville to a clan of strict Scottish fundamentalists, Burrows dropped out of Harvard College and worked as a department store clerk and as an insurance adjuster.

During the Depression he was an official with the U.S. Works Progress Administration. In World War II, he was a civilian employee of the U.S. Army in the Aleutian Islands.

Burrows also worked in a Boston shipyard before returning to Harvard, this time as a university policeman. He stayed 20 years.

“He was a very learned person, but he hid his light under a bushel,” said Joan Shurcliff, who also worked for the Massachusetts Civil Liberties Committee, as it was originally called.

Shurcliff said Burrows was an instrumental force when the Massachusetts group merged with Roger Baldwin’s New York-based ACLU in the early 1940s.

Besides his son, Burrows leaves four grandchildren.