502 W Water St, | Elmira, NY 14905 | Phone (607) 733-6271
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John Comereski posted a condolence
Monday, April 3, 2023
Barb, Dave, Karyn and the entire DeGolyer Family, I am very sorry to hear of your/our loss. Dick was truly a wonderful person. I met him at Club Nautilus years ago and immediately became a friend. He will be missed but not forgotten. RIP Dick!
D
Dave DeGolyer posted a condolence
Monday, April 3, 2023
Dave's Eulogy
I want to talk about everything. Every inch, every second of the life he lived. But my best friend reminded me how much of an impact my dad had on him, on me, on so many people without even realizing it and how we all continue to share a little bit of him by taking up after him in the things we do, in the way we treat others. So, I’ll do most of the telling of Dad’s life story through my own deeds. Through my attempts to be the type of man he would be proud of.
Three days before the end, Mom perches on the edge of the radiator by the window—paint worn off from how many others seated the same way, bent at the waist from a heavy heart, left elbow on the hospital bed—the frail fingers of her right hand scrawling “love” on Dad’s arm.
His chest rises, falls.
Left eye has been closed two days, the right one half open, as if refusing to say goodbye, fixed on a spot on the wall between the TV and clock as if he can already see where he’s headed.
His right eye widens.
“Just checking,” he whispers, making sure she’s still there.
“Who did you think was rubbing your arm?” laughs Mom. “Another girl?”
“Yikes!” he says, his whole face stretched by the bigness of the word before it slumps again, mouth open, right eye partway closed.
I have been searching all day, trying to find just one right word that might sum up a life and he gives it to me.
“Yikes!”
I imagine that is the word his mother says on that last push in Olean on August 6th, 1938. “Yikes!” As if she knows what’s in store with the coming of her second son, Richard, the boy with the spark in his eye even before he joins the rest of his siblings: Lillian, John, Dorothy, Janice, and Margaret. It will be another year before Gail arrives.
“Yikes,” is the sort of word that fits him, the boy called Dicky by his friends . . .
D
Dave DeGolyer posted a condolence
Sunday, April 2, 2023
I want to talk about everything. Every inch, every second of the life he lived. But my best friend reminded me how much of an impact my dad had on him, on me, on so many people without even realizing it and how we all continue to share a little bit of him by taking up after him in the things we do, in the way we treat others. So, I’ll do most of the telling of Dad’s life story through my own deeds. Through my attempts to be the type of man he would be proud of.
Three days before the end, Mom perches on the edge of the radiator by the window—paint worn off from how many others seated the same way, bent at the waist from a heavy heart, left elbow on the hospital bed—the frail fingers of her right hand scrawling “love” on Dad’s arm.
His chest rises, falls.
Left eye has been closed two days, the right one half open, as if refusing to say goodbye, fixed on a spot on the wall between the TV and clock as if he can already see where he’s headed.
His right eye widens.
“Just checking,” he whispers, making sure she’s still there.
“Who did you think was rubbing your arm?” laughs Mom. “Another girl?”
“Yikes!” he says, his whole face stretched by the bigness of the word before it slumps again, mouth open, right eye partway closed.
I have been searching all day, trying to find just one right word that might sum up a life and he gives it to me.
“Yikes!” Expresses fear. And astonishment!
I imagine that is the word his mother says on that last push in Olean on August 6th, 1938. “Yikes!” As if she knows what’s in store with the coming of her second son, Richard, the boy with the spark in his eye even before he joins the rest of his siblings: Lillian, John, Dorothy, Janice, and Margaret. It will be another year before Gail arrives.
“Yikes,” is the sort of word that fits him, the boy called Dicky by his friends.
When he would tell stories of his youth, there was always a special spark in his eye, mischievous smile turned up at the tips of his mouth. Like the one he shared about the old Italian man who made wine and took a swipe at his head with a garden hoe, barely missing, as little Dicky scrambled down after climbing the old man’s arbor, hands full of precious grapes. Cheeks full, too, no doubt.
“Nearly took my head off,” he told me many times.
I imagine, now, the word “Yikes” escaping his lips as his young legs carried him to safety.
I can’t imagine how many times he probably whispered that word in his youth, the boy who threatened to run away when my aunt told him he couldn’t go play with a friend. He was going to get her in trouble, but didn’t count on her offering to pack him a lunch.
She found him later sitting defiantly.
“Did you pack you clothes?” she asked.
“I’m not going.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’d like it too much.”
Yikes!
He used to say sports saved him. He’d usually only hint at all the trouble he got into before sports. That he might have gone looking for before he was on a team . . .
D
Dave DeGolyer posted a condolence
Sunday, April 2, 2023
Dave's Eulogy
It’s been a rough few months for my Mom and my extended family. My Uncle Larry passed away at the end of October, Aunt Dorothy in December, Uncle Donnie in February, then my dad. My cousin Mark passed away just a few days ago. Before I get too emotional to say thank you to everyone here, everyone watching. Thank you for the love you have shown my dad and all of us.
In the hospital, once I realized I'd be up here, I started this, but I really have no idea how to do this. So, I'm going to jump back and forth a bit from the hospital to other things . . .
I want to talk about everything. Every inch, every second of the life he lived. But my best friend reminded me how much of an impact my dad had on him, on me, on so many people without even realizing it and how we all continue to share a little bit of him by taking up after him in the things we do, in the way we treat others. So, I’ll do most of the telling of Dad’s life story through my own deeds. Through my attempts to be the type of man he would be proud of.
Three days before the end, Mom perches on the edge of the radiator by the window—paint worn off from how many others seated the same way, bent at the waist from a heavy heart, left elbow on the hospital bed—the frail fingers of her right hand scrawling “love” on Dad’s arm.
His chest rises, falls.
Left eye has been closed two days, the right one half open, as if refusing to say goodbye, fixed on a spot on the wall between the TV and clock as if he can already see where he’s headed.
His right eye widens.
“Just checking,” he whispers, making sure she’s still there.
“Who did you think was rubbing your arm?” laughs Mom. “Another girl?”
“Yikes!” he says, his whole face stretched by the bigness of the word before it slumps again, mouth open, right eye partway closed.
I have been searching all day, trying to find just one right word that might sum up a life and he gives it to me.
“Yikes!”
I imagine, that is the word his mother says on that last push in Olean on August 6th, 1938. “Yikes!” As if she knows what’s in store with the coming of her second son, Richard, the boy with the spark in his eye even before he joins the rest of his siblings: Lillian, John, Dorothy, Janice, and Margaret. It will be another year before Gail arrives.
“Yikes,” is the sort of word that fits him, the boy called Dicky by his friends.
When he would tell stories of his youth, there was always a special spark in his eye, mischievous smile turned up at the tips of his mouth. Like the one he shared about the old Italian man who made wine and took a swipe at his head with a garden hoe, barely missing, as little Dicky scrambled down after climbing the old man’s arbor, hands full of precious grapes. Cheeks full, too, no doubt.
“Nearly took my head off,” he told me many times.
I imagine, now, the word “Yikes” escaping his lips as his young legs carried him to safety.
I can’t imagine how many times he probably whispered that word in his youth, the boy who threatened to run away when my aunt told him he couldn’t go play with a friend. He was going to get her in trouble, but didn’t count on her offering to pack him a lunch.
She found him later sitting defiantly.
“Did you pack you clothes?” she asked.
“I’m not going.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’d like it too much.”
Yikes!
He used to say sports saved him. He’d usually only hint at all the trouble he got into before sports. That he might have gone looking for before he was on a team.
He liked to tell stories of his playing days. How he was on the first basketball team in Edison history to score 100 points and he was the player to score points 100 and 101. His friend, Mr. Haskins told me recently, they looked up at the scoreboard and it showed Home 01, Away 89 as if they’d just got crushed by their rival Horseheads. But they’d won in big fashion. Yikes!
Dad was a good football player, but he grew up with an older brother who was a star quarterback in Olean. Dad must have said, “Yikes!” the first time he ran pass routes with Johnny firing the ball at his face before he ever turned around, teaching him the fine art of getting his hands up, of being ready. Even though, all these years later, none of us are ready for this. None of us could turn our heads fast enough to see it coming. Not even Dad. He was just getting ready to come home, to settle back in his chair and meet things head on. And I’m grateful for that. Grateful that he didn’t see what was coming.
Friday, he was watching TV, laughing a little, excited about coming home, about living the rest of his life with family. The next day, he’s there in the bed, but he’s mostly gone. Except for a few words.
“Yikes,” he says.
Most of Saturday, and all of Sunday he’s been gone—unresponsive, just that closed left eye, right eye partly open, mouth hanging wide as he breathes so hard—then Monday comes and he seems almost back with us a bit, not able to turn his head, but whispering a few responses.
Mom approaches him, after two days of talking without so much as a flinch, and she says, “Hey. I’m here. Do you know who I am?” And he whispers, “yeah, Wild Bill.”
I laugh and say, "well he still has his sense of humor," and his whole face changes. Starts to fold into that playful smile as much as it can, mouth turned up at the ends, right eye a bit more open, sparkling. Somewhere inside the part of him that has been fading is that playful boy with the dry wit still waving at us. There aren’t many words the last few days. Aren’t many moments of interplay, but I will always remember, Wild Bill, and a few private things he whispers to me.
By evening even the words are gone and all the next day.
“Yikes,” he must have said the day he was working at Pittsburgh Paint in Elmira and the pretty girl walked by on her lunch break and waved at his boss. Just think if he’d been waiting on someone, or mixing paint, or if cell phones were around back then and he had his face aimed down. Instead, his boss offered to introduce them. Dad and that girl dated, fell in love. Then, he volunteered for the draft and went into the Army. She gave him a medal of Mary in 1958 before he left and he wore it every single day. She’s wearing it now. After his two years were up, he came home and they started to plan a wedding. Then he got called back in, so they scrambled, rushed around, got hitched. Five months ago, they celebrated 61 years of marriage.
“Yikes!”
He played baseball for the Army, met lifelong friends who to this day are still close with my Dad, with us. He got to travel Europe. I’ve been told that the greatest thrill of his life was going to Rome and meeting the Pope. Though, I’m pretty sure holding his granddaughter for the first time passed that by.
When Karyn and I were little, I’m pretty sure my dad said, “Yikes.” All. The. Time. Because, well, (pretend point at Kari) . . . Lol. No, mostly because of me.
He tried to instill values in us. Honesty being one. He took me aside one day and said, look, if you do something that ends up being wrong but you’re honest with me about it, you’re not going to get into trouble. For example, if you accidentally break someone’s window. If you come to me and tell me you did it, I’ll stand behind you. But if you lie about it, that’s not going to go over too well. He must have muttered, Yikes, a half dozen times after that. He must have questioned his use of an example, too, because there was Caccia’s window down the street that I put my arm through the day they were going away on vacation. The basement window I busted when the baseball I was heaving at the foundation of the house somehow curved and missed the entire foundation and crashed through the little window. Then there was the window on the pickup truck the time a handyman came over to fix something, parked in the driveway while I was shooting, and I missed that long-range shot which bounced high off the back rim and over my head and pretty much into the backseat of the truck. “Yikes!”
For years, we lived on Mt. Zoar and I was six, seven, eight years old and played every day in the cemetery we are going to after this. When it was time to come home at night, sun going down, my Dad would call out for me or my Mom did. But I’d keep playing and playing, milking every second, until I saw the car come around the corner. I’d dive behind a monument. I’d watch him slow drive up the street that ran beside the cemetery calling out my name, then he’d turn the next corner and I’d sprint home, trying to get there before him, so I could greet him in the driveway, gasping, and be all, like, I don’t why you were out looking for me, as if I was right there all the time. Every night at bedtime, they’d have to tell me over and and over and over to go to bed, and I fought it, terrified really if I closed my eyes that would be the last time. And, now, I sit across the room and watch that right eye cracked open just a bit, as he struggles to breathe, and I think this is a thing we share, not being ready to stop seeing the people we love in this world.
We watched the river take houses during the flood, stood with our toes at the edge of the watery world. I still remember it today. We moved after that and I blamed him in a way even though he was looking out for all of us the way he always did. I was nine and there was no excuse for a change like that, but I get it now. I thank him for putting us first.
He taught me football. Baseball. Basketball. Golf. The stories I could tell. Golf outings with the whole family. Playing one-on-one. Mom winning March Madness. Like, every year! Dad’s trash talk. He was the barometer of what I strived to be. As an athlete. As a person. He is the barometer. He encouraged me to dream. To listen to my heart, and try anything that called to me.
He's still friends with people from Olean, from school, from the Army, from work, from sports. People were important to him and he’d drop everything to help if asked. But he always undervalued his own worth to others, his own place in the grand scheme of things. For all that he did and could do, he was incredibly humble. Such a strong man. Physically strong. But stronger, still, in character. In kindness. For all his no-nonsense, Mountain Man, you need to be strong to survive in this world mentality, he was kind, and had a big heart. He was love. Is love! He hugged us. Told us he loved us. We never had to wonder how he felt. We disappointed him, at times, with our choices, with our behavior. But he always forgave us. He was always there to lift us up out of the muck we’d fallen into. To brush us off if we needed it or simply to remind us we’d be okay. That he and mom would always be there. Are always with us, even now.
He and I had movies. It was something we shared from the time I was a little boy. Saturday afternoons. Westerns. War movies. Spy movies. Tarzan. Abbott and Costello. It was a special language we shared. Of course, my dad ruined suspenseful movies and horror movies for me for the rest of time. We went to the theater to see Star Wars when it came out. And Jaws. In Jaws, they set up the shark attacks with the music, so by the second one you know when you hear Dun-Dun Dun-Dun, the shark is coming. Someone is getting eaten. There’s a scene partway into the movie where they find this boat floating in the ocean and the hull is just this gaping hole and the music builds and this diver gets closer and closer and even though you’ve seen that the shark is way too big to come out of the hole, that’s what you’re expecting. Dun-Dun-Dun-Dun-Dun-Dun. Then bam, something comes out of that hole and at that exactly moment, my dad reacts, flings his arm out, his hand smacking me in the chest. I scream out. In the theater.
“Yikes,” indeed!
Over the past month, I watched a number of TV shows and movies with him and my mom. Usually, the snooze twins were on either side of me, dozing off. It wasn’t from a long day, though. My dad was so just tired from a long life. And he had a great life, a full life. He was so tired from the past few years which were nonstop pain and effort just to walk down the hallway two or three times a day, until near the end when he couldn’t really walk at all, needed help to stand. My mom was exhausted, too, because she’s been there with him every step. I can’t thank her enough for the way she took care of him. I had no idea of just how much she was doing until I was there. How hard it was for her physically. But even more for both of them how hard it was mentally, emotionally. To be a hall of fame athlete with such a strong body, one you could use to do anything, and be reduced to confines of a three foot space, to a single chair. In the hospital, my dad had to ask me to give him an ice cube from a spoon. All he could do was ask. And open his mouth. And say, thank you. Thank you in that whisper voice. Yikes!!!
And my mom, not only did she live through the transition, moment by moment, she’s the one who took it on. Imagine your body failing, but instead of being built a new cyborg body like in the movies he and I used to watch, what happens is the diminutive little woman at your side becomes your body. She lifts your legs to get you into bed until even working together it’s just too much. She’s the one who helps you into the car, in and out of the house. The weight of all that, not just the body she puts on her back, the way she carries him, but the way she lifts him up, keeps his spirits high. I can’t truly wrap my head around either side of that dance. But thank you, Mom, from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for what you gave Dad. For what you both gave all of us.
“Yikes!”
It’s no wonder, when Mom and Dad were young and dating, his own mom, five foot tall and full of spitfire, told him if he “didn’t marry that girl he was a biggest son of a something God ever put on this earth.” She might have used a non-church-friendly term, but you get the idea. Yikes!
Two days after my Uncle Donnie’s funeral, my dad coughed up some blood. He was taken by ambulance to the hospital. They discovered lesions on both lungs, his adrenal gland, his rib, and another bone in his back. The diagnosis went from pneumonia to some strange bacteria maybe. Maybe cancer. They released him because that’s the only way he can get a biopsy done. As an outpatient. Around 2:30 in the morning of the day he had to go back to the hospital for the biopsy, my mom was in the bathroom getting sick. She might have had a stomach bug and we agreed that she needed to stay home. Which meant I had to help get Dad dressed. She told me, “he has dark blue sweatpants with a stripe down the side hanging over the wheelchair in the laundry room.” I got the sweatpants with the stripe from over the wheelchair, helped him into his undergarment, then the pants. We decided to loop them over his ankles before he stood from the chair, as he couldn’t stand long. Then I’d help him get them all the way up.
First, I slip the left foot through, then the right. He uses his lift chair to get partway up, then I pull him the rest of the way. He holds onto his walker. And I pull the sweatpants up. I heave and I hoist and they stop at his knees, which are being pulled in because the pants aren’t very wide. The upper part of the pant legs are skin tight around his calves.
“What the bleep are you doing to me?” he says.
“I don’t know,” I reply.
“What are you doing to me?” It’s half incredulous laugh, half utter frustration.
“I’ll be right back,” I say and I run into the laundry room, find a pair of dark blue sweatpants with a stripe on them, NOT over the wheelchair, but in another spot.
Yep. I was trying to get him dressed in my mom’s sweatpants.
“Yikes!”
He had me tell the nurse at the hospital before his biopsy. Made me tell the story to my mom later on that evening after we got back.
In the hospital, I watch him, over and over, day after day. He just wants to go home, watch his brand new 60” TV (which he said he loved about 30 times over the two weeks he got to use it). He just wants to be home with his family. In the end, we can’t give him that. But we are there. In the room with him. When he fades down to that whisper voice, no longer able to turn his head toward the sounds of us. No longer able to keep his left eye open at all. And when he fades even more, his mouth open, gasping to breathe.
His chest rises. Falls.
That heart, the thing that fails him in the end, is the strongest part really. The part he shared every single day with so many of us. No wonder it’s tired out. No wonder it’s struggling.
He was a strong man. He had this deceptive strength, but he taught me not through words, but through his actions, that true strength comes from how you treat other people. Being a man isn’t defined by using a hammer or a wrench, by knowing an engine or being able to build something, but by standing up for others, by lending a hand for no other reason than doing the right thing. That being different is okay, and to always be true to yourself even if it means a hard fight. Even if it means other people don’t understand. If you have goodness in your heart, are able to put others first when warranted, are able to do your best at being the best you, even with your flaws, even with your shortcomings, that’s what’s important in the end. Not the number of eagles and birdies you’ve gotten, not the number of three pointers you’ve knocked down, not the amount of weight you can lift above your head, but the amount of light you can share from your heart and your ability to lift others through your deeds. (Though, he would say that playing and having fun is important, too.)
From across the room, I watch him, searching for the right word. Imagining a gentle passing, him just smiling one last time, quietly slipping away. But this is the opposite of that.
As I said, Monday he comes back to us a little. We learn, this is part of the process of leaving.
Three different times, I watch from across the room as he says something to Mom, his voice so soft, almost gone. She leans down. His lips pucker just a bit. Three times their lips touch for what might be the last time. Until it is the last time.
His chest rises . . . falls.
Yikes!
The next day he is almost all the way gone all day. Right eye barely open now. He doesn’t respond to anything. Except pain. He’s been in pain so long, but the last two days are excruciating. His breathing so labored. His chest full of fluid. He fights so hard to breathe as he fills with too much of himself and for most of the day, instinctively we are diving in, trying to keep him from drowning, each of us going under. We are fighting so much with the anguish that I’m not even sure we’re completely present. Holding on. Trying to let go at the same time. Praying nonstop. Each of us is praying, and not for a thing anyone ever dreams of praying for. We just wish for his release. Dad is a spiritual man. Devout, especially to Mary. That’s why she’s on the prayer card today. He wore that medal Mom gave him 65 years. He prayed to Mary, kept a small statue of her in his bedroom, another in a special alcove in the woods to watch over the house, his loved ones, anyone who came. We even found a note with his reasons for that.
The doctor increases the pain meds, and you can see him finally relax a bit. She sends something to help with the fluid in his chest. And he quiets. He softens. He doesn’t work so hard, doesn’t fight so much.
His chest rises. Falls.
We are there.
Sometimes, we have to look away.
Sometimes, we can’t stop staring.
I take in the big flat ear lobes. The pointiness of his nose. The small island of hair he has left on his head.
I’m heading for the same island. We watch him.
His chest rises. Falls.
We all stop everything. Just sit in silence, eyes wide, filling with the very last of him. Filling and filling as much as we can. Not one of us breathing ourselves. We watch him. We watch. Him.
His chest rises.
Falls.
Yikes!
Love you, Dad!
D
Dave DeGolyer posted a condolence
Sunday, April 2, 2023
To the DeGolyer Family, So sorry to hear of the passing of Dick. I pray that the Lord will give you ALL peace and understanding through this difficult time.
Tom Mold
Karyn and family so sorry for the loss of your father and husband. You will get stronger each day but never forget the great memories that you all remember. Cherish those moments. Rex D.
Rex Dilmore
Had the pleasure of playing a few rounds of golf with Mr. DeGolyer back 25 + years ago. Always an enjoyable experience and a lot of fun, and competitive! Great golf memories. He's already made a tee time with our friend Bill Mecum up in golf heaven. Rest easy Mr. DeGolyer. A pleasure to have known you. God Bless. Heart felt condolences to Mrs. DeGolyer, Dave, and Karen.
Adam Augustine
D
Dave DeGolyer posted a condolence
Sunday, April 2, 2023
To Barbara, your children and JohnD my prayers and sympathy go out to you with the loss of Dick who was a great guy, a very good mold maker and very sincere person. I know because I was in that group in the Elmira shop, please know that you are in my thoughts and prayers during this stressful time. Neil Smith, 1957-1977 409 S. Riviera Lane, Yorktown, Indiana
Neil Smith
D
Dave DeGolyer posted a condolence
Sunday, April 2, 2023
Karyn's Eulogy
Good morning. My name is Karyn and Richard DeGolyer is my father. He is and will always be my biggest cheerleader! I am saying my father "is" and not my father "was" (as my daughter pointed out) because even though his soul is with God . . . his love is still with us! Not a day went by we didn’t tell each other we loved each other!
There was not a time in my life I couldn’t call my dad! Whether my washer had stopped, if I had a chipmunk in the house. Or the best one was a bat! Man, he walked in the back door to the house, as we hid upstairs and we heard, wham wham wham. "I GOT IT!" I thought, gosh I certainly hope so. Needless to say, there wasn’t much to test for rabies at that point!
Anyone who had the honor to know him was blessed because he was only close to a few in his life. If you were one of the few, you knew he’d walk to the ends of the earth for you!
My Dad was a very private man and a family man! His family always came first! When my father turned 60, he became a Grandpa! He said, "man, I’m so excited because I’m retired now . . . So thanks a lot. This is perfect timing for me!!" You’re welcome, Dad!!
Anyone who knows us knows Delaney is the apple of his eye. His little sweetheart! Now, before I had her, I had lived on my own for about 12 years. I talked to my Dad A LOT. But he never came to my apartments very often because I always went to visit him.
Well, here comes Miss Delaney into the world. Every day, and I mean every day, for the first year he was at my door!
I’d say, “Hi Dad.”
“Oh, hi honey. Where’s my little sweetheart?”
And, there he’d go, and pick her up!
Man, she could tell him the way things were and he would just listen and smile and say, I love it!!
Somethings my dad used to say was of course the infamous, “don’t ever judge a book by it’s cover.” Or “you never know what people are going through, so always be nice! Always be respectful.” “Always tell the truth.” Or my favorite, “BE THE BALL!!!”
If you had an interview or a tryout, he’d say, "You got this, kid. Just be the ball." The first time he said that, I thought, “be the ball?” What does that even mean? Then, I knew it was no matter the sport, the ball truly is in control no matter your effort. So, In all aspects in life, always be the ball!
In golf, he would say Kari (that’s what he called me), he would say, “Kari keep your head down and ring the bell. Follow through until you hit that imaginary bell.” I have strived to live my life following through and ringing the bell!
My father is a man of faith and conviction! His faith meant everything to him! God was ever present in our home!
There truly aren’t enough words to express the love I have for him and there won’t be a day that goes by I won’t miss him. It is with great pride, I am able to honor my father, my friend, and forever my Daddy!
So, I will say, “Rest in peace now, Daddy. I’ll always be with you and I will love you forever!”
G
Garth Rumsmoke posted a condolence
Saturday, April 1, 2023
after returning from a western horse trip Dick told me, "I always wanted to be a cowboy". who would thought it. Found memories of a great guy.
R
Robert Muccigrosso posted a condolence
Friday, March 31, 2023
I can still recall the day Dick first walked into our classroom with a shy but warm smile that immediately made me think that he would become a special classmate. And how right I was! I moved from the Heights after graduation and saw Dick, regretfully, only rarely afterwards. But we did remain in touch over the years, and I'll carry very warm memories of him for as long as I have memories,
Barb, I and my wife, Maxine, send you and your family our condolences for the loss of your beloved husband and companion for so many years.
Robert and Maxine Muccigrosso
A
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Wednesday, March 29, 2023
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Tuesday, March 28, 2023
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Kyle Hayduk posted a condolence
Tuesday, March 28, 2023
Uncle Dick was the best, I always looked forward to seeing him and having good conversations, which typically revolved around sports and that reminds me that he was present for my only hole-in-one so that is a memory I will always remember as he and David were inspirational in teaching me how to golf at a pretty early age. He always took the time to have a meaningful conversation with you which I really appreciated and he was gracious, even gracious enough to give me his recliner chair when I was in college and kept for over 15 years. I will miss him, he was a genuinely good and kind person.
Kyle
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Joyce Hayduk posted a condolence
Monday, March 27, 2023
Dick- My favorite Brother-in-law ( we joked about this, as he was my only one). Let’s see where to start. I guess it was the day I thought you were taking my big Sister away. I looked out my school window and saw her in that beautiful white dress coming out of our house. I thought I don’t think I’m going to like this guy. As I grew we had oh SO many arguments or should I say discussions . Well I learned I better start liking you if I wanted to get to see my niece and nephew. As time went on and Mom sent you to my apartment to check up on me I didn’t think you were so bad. Time went on - I got married and your little ones grew. I started to understand your arguments more and loved you as a Brother. I decided I’d knock off the in - law part and Love you as much as I did my own Brothers. Now you have gone to be with our Heavenly Father and I miss you!! I guess it’s my turn to watch over my Sister. Thanks for doing such I good job with her. I Love You! I hope to see you in the future. RIP until we see each other again, Joyce
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John Minch posted a condolence
Friday, March 24, 2023
So many great memories of my Uncle Dick. He was always supportive and encouraging and very patient with a hack golfer like me. Like the rest of my aunts and uncles he was a great example for me as a kid. Ellen and I send condolences to my Aunt Barb, Karen, David, DeLaney and the family. Rest in Peace Uncle Dick. Love you. Say “Hi” to my dad for me.
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Becky and Jim Kowulich lit a candle
Friday, March 24, 2023
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We will miss seeing Dick relaxing out on the back porch with Barb. He was always willing to talk with you, and was very wise and gave lots of wisdom throughout the conversation. We love Dick and Barb, and we’re very lucky to have them as our “back door” neighbors!!
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Annie Ryan posted a condolence
Friday, March 24, 2023
Annie Ryan
I will always remember the great times with Uncle Dickie and the whole family at the cottage on Seneca Lake!! My dad, Uncle Charlie and Uncle Don now have their foursome for the golf course!!
Rest in Peace My Uncle. . Love you! Annie
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Mary, Max, Noelle and Christopher Tournour posted a condolence
Friday, March 24, 2023
It was such an honor to have known Dick. Our thoughts are with all of you.
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Angie Taylor posted a condolence
Friday, March 24, 2023
When I think of Uncle Dick, I think of so many cherished memories, a man that made you feel heard, was very present in the conversation you were having with him & of course, Golf ⛳️ Growing up, in my eyes, Uncle Dick & Aunt Barb were elegance, class, kindness & an example of the grown up I wanted to be. I will be forever grateful to have had Uncle Dick in my life. Not to mention, he gave me some pretty amazing cousins in Dave, Karyn & Delaney. I love you bunches & always will.
Ang (& Nathan)
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The family of Richard N. DeGolyer uploaded a photo
Friday, March 24, 2023
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A Memorial Tree was planted for Richard DeGolyer
Friday, March 24, 2023
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We are deeply sorry for your loss ~ the staff at McInerny Funeral Home Join in honoring their life - plant a memorial tree
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Annie Ryan posted a condolence
Friday, March 24, 2023
I will always remember the great times with Uncle Dickie and the whole family at the cottage on Seneca Lake!! My dad, Uncle Charlie and Uncle Don now have their foursome for the golf course!!
Rest in Peace My Uncle. . Love you! Annie
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Since our founding, the guiding principle of McInerny Funeral Home has been the commitment to treating each family who comes to us as our own. With sincerity, pride, and dedication, we are committed to this time-honored tradition
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McInerny Funeral Home
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