Richard Arthur Nelson

July 21, 1916 to November 9, 2007

Richard A. Nelson was born in Patterson, New Jersey. His father, G. Arthur Nelson, was a Swedish immigrant with a 6^th grade education, and his mother, Grace Miller Nelson, was a Daughter of the American Revolution. Dick began school ind the 3^rd grade when the family moved to Upper Montclair, where he met boys in his neighborhood who spent their summers at a camp in upper state New York. Dick wanted to go too, and so in 1927, his parents sent their only child off to Camp Dudley on Lake Champlain for the first of 5 idyllic summers. Dick loved camp where the motto, “the other fellow first” was lived out in the boyish frenzy of a Dudley summer. Dick would remember those summers his entire life; his son and 2 of his grandchildren followed in his footsteps, and everyone grew up learning camp songs and hearing stories of camp life.

Dick attended Dartmouth College, where he joined a fraternity, and skied on wood slats, laced into leather boots, and attended the Tuck School during his senior year. After graduating in 1938, Dick went to work at Guaranty National Trust Bank in New York City, where he met his Ruthie. Ruth and Dick began a 65-year love affair when they married on September 26^th, 1942. Having joined the Navy after Pearl Harbor, Dick was married in dress whites under crossed-swords. A “90-Day Wonder,” he taught navigation to midshipmen in NYC until he left for Miami where he served as an instructor at the Navy’s navigation school and wrote the Navy’s navigation manual. On the train, when a telegram announcing the birth of his first child was handed to the disconsolate young lieutenant, he surprised his seatmate with a joyous whoop. Dick left his little family in Miami for the Pacific, where he served on an escort off the Aleutian Islands.

After the war, Dick worked as a salesman for Dolphin Jute Mills and moved back to Upper Montclair, where Susan and Peter were born. In 1953, Dick became the west coast sales rep for Philadelphia Carpet, so Ruth and Dick moved their 3 children and Mike, a disreputable St. Bernard, to Brentwood. With a territory that included all the western states, he was on the road constantly, showing samples to customers from Phoenix to Seattle. During a family vacation on Balboa Island in 1958, Ruth and Dick fell in love with Newport. They decided to leave the big house and LA behind and the following spring moved to the new Irvine Terrace. Dick joined the Balboa Yacht Club, where his children could learn to love the sea as he did. He crewed in the Ensenada Race and raced his Lido 14 in the bay. Life was great.

In 1960, Dick became vice president of Philadelphia Carpet and moved the family to Darien, Connecticut. Always inveterate travelers, Ruth and Dick threw themselves into their return to the east coast, enjoying midnight skating parties, sailing off Block Island, entertaining new and old friends alike, and reuniting with Pete Horton, a Dudley leader now Presbyterian minister. The Connecticut sojourn lasted two years, and the Nelsons returned to Newport Beach, where Dick began his career with Avery Adhesives in 1962. Dick developed the Rotex division for Avery, opening offices in the Netherlands, Sao Paulo, and Santa Ana. Ruth and Dick moved into their current home that same year, and quickly reconnected with friends they’d left 2 years earlier. Dick always loved an intellectual challenge, and he found the work in Europe during those busy years with Rotex stimulating as well as productive. He retired in 1973 and enjoyed nearly 30 years of travel, grandchildren, and the “Roost,” in San Clemente, with his beloved Ruth.

Dick is survived by Ruth, his wife of 65 years, his 3 children, Tina, Susan, and Peter, his 8 grandchildren, and his 5 great grandchildren. He loved St. Andrews, his church home for more than 50 years, where he served faithfully as an elder and a lay leader. He loved Camp Dudley, the place that gave him such happy childhood memories and such great strength of character. He loved his college, where he enjoyed the intellectual explorations that formed his life-long mental discipline. Most of all, he loved his wife and his family. He was a source of strength and wisdom, of humor and compassion for all of us. We will miss him more than we can say.

A memorial service in celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and of a life well and faithfully lived will be held at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, Saturday, November 17^th at 2:00 PM. In lieu of flowers, gifts in Dick’s memory may be sent to Camp Dudley, Westport, NY, or to St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, Newport Beach.