Obituary of Richard Warren

Richard Dean (Dick) Warren, aged 87, of Belfast, ME passed away on September 29, 2018. Dick was born on April 9, 1931, in Lexington MA, to Manfred and Lucy Dean Warren. He attended Lexington High School, spending his summers in Maine, where his parents were raised. He achieved the rank of Eagle Scout in High School. He received his bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1951 and later received an MBA from American University. He married Audrey Roberts DeGraff on July 5, 1952. They were happily married for 59 years, until her passing in 2011. Dick joined the US Navy in 1952, retiring as a Lieutenant Commander after 20 years of service. For his next career, he became an entrepreneur in various fields. He had always been involved in computer technology, teaching programming at the college level at a time when one computer filled an entire room. He maintained that interest, opening an Apple Computer store at the dawn of the personal computing age. He also sold Unimogs for a time, and eventually became a real estate broker and land developer in VA and ME. Throughout his life, he maintained a couple of avocations that began in his youth. The first was farming, cultivated while spending his summers in Cape Elizabeth working on a neighbor’s farm. He was a Gentleman Farmer in both ME and VA, raising cattle, sheep, and poultry, as well as tending to vast, bountiful vegetable gardens; he had the greenest of thumbs. His second hobby began as a child, collecting stamps, which he developed into an international business of buying and selling varieties of stamps, specializing in non-postal varieties. Dick was a true Renaissance Man. His interests ranged from jazz (he was a disc jockey in college) to Eastern philosophy, labyrinths, and whatever flora and fauna were endemic to the area in which he lived. He spent hours kayaking and hiking. He never stopped learning; he was a regular at Senior College and many seminars and programs in the state. He was a member of Rotary International and also a Hospice volunteer. Dick was a world traveler, beginning during his military years and continuing through his entire life, making friends wherever he went. He loved to tell a good story and had a great sense of humor. Dick will always be remembered as a loving husband, father, friend and partner. He was preceded in death by his wife, Audrey, his parents, Manfred and Lucy, and by two grandchildren, Emily and Alex Kane. Remaining to cherish his memory are his four children, Nancy A. Warren, Anne Warren, and her husband Alan Johnson, Susan Quinn, and her husband Bill, Richard Dean Warren, Jr. (Rick), and his wife Karen, his five grandchildren, Erin Kane, Patrick Kane, Lauren Posey-Westphal, Sancia Winslow, and Marissa Alexander, 9 great grandchildren, his sister, Diana Kubick, generations of extended family, and his partner, Sally Sweezy. A memorial service will be held at The Boathouse in Belfast on Sunday, October 21, 2018 from 2:00 to 4:00 pm. In lieu of flowers, contributions in his memory may be made to your local Hospice center.