Richard (Dick) was married to Carrol Lasch, which created some problems. Dad was Catholic and Mom was Lutheran and neither set of parents accepted this. Dad's mother didn't speak to him for about 20 years until Mom got the two together one day. Mom's mother was very not nice to my brothers and I, and rarely had anything to do with us. But my parents became Unitarian long before I was born.

Dad was in world war II in the navy. He was in engineering corps and was sent to Okinawa to build landing strips, roads, and buildings. He was also very much an artist, and drew pictures of villages and scenes in Okinawa which I still have. He drew a map of the island and it ended up on the front cover of Life Magazine. My brother Clyde has the original.

He became a civil engineer and was quickly very well respected in his field. He won many awards for his designs, including a concrete diving board, Blossom Music Center's pavilion (Peter VanDyke was the architect), a multidirectional launch track for NASA test rockets, and a lot more. The Italian government contacted him in the early 1970's, along with a few other engineers from other countries, to create a plan to stabilize the Leaning Tower of Pisa…his plan was too expensive so they went with another, cheaper plan…now in 2012 the Italians lost the battle with gravity and instituted Dad's plan.

He was a nature buff, a classical music enthusiast, a photographer, and an artist. He tried to always live somewhere where he had privacy and could be close to nature. Unfortunately for me, that also meant in isolated places…I grew up without access to friends. But he did pass along his love of nature and art.

He divorced my mom in the late 1960's, and remarried twice. But his only children were with Carrol except for an unusually nice boy, Kurt, who became part of his family thru Ruth, his third wife.

He died of a stroke,was cremated, and buried in the same plot as his mother with whom he became very close to by the end of her life. They are buried in Lakewood Cemetary which is on Rocky River Dr. in Westlake Ohio. I will remember him for his twinkling eyes, his creativity, and his love for art.

Laurel Gensert Bishop

Richard M Gensert