Richard "Dick" Orlin Mead

January 26, 1930 - March 26, 2021

Richard Orlin Mead The world lost a giant Friday morning, a hero, a father, a grandpa, an uncle, a landscaper, a businessman, a mentor, and one of God's greatest creations ever. On March 26, 2021, Richard Orlin "Dick" Mead of Cleverdale, NY, died peacefully in his sleep by the lake he cherished in the home he built with his own hands fifty-five years before and in which he and his love, Madeline, raised seven children and lived a life blessed by health, happiness, hard work, fun, and family. Dick Mead was born January 26, 1930 in Glens Falls, NY, to Arthur and Frances (McCarty) Mead. He graduated from Glens Falls High School in 1948, where he still holds records for hurdles in track. He met Madeline in homeroom at school when they were 12 years old, and at 16, they started dating, then fell in love. After high school, Dick spent a year in college at Holy Cross and Cornell, but he missed Madeline too much and came home to marry her and start the landscape nursery they would run for seventy years. Dick never tired of telling anyone who would listen that Madeline was his greatest blessing and the love of his life. For the rest of their 65 years together, Dick hated spending even a single night away from Madeline, planning necessary trips to be short so he could always get home to sleep beside her. They did everything together in their quiet, loving way, walking through life side by side, hand in hand, partners in all. Losing Madeline in 2014 was devastating to Dick, and he never truly recovered. However, he found love and companionship with his second wife, Patricia Taylor Mead, who was Madeline’s lifelong best friend. Dick knew Patricia since elementary school, and her first husband Sandy Taylor was one of his best friends. His five years with Pat brought comfort to them both. Dick was a hard worker from his earliest days. His first business was selling worms and frogs out of his parents’ garage next to their ice cream store on Cleverdale—up early and out late gathering his wares. As a teenager and young man, his jobs included harvesting ice from the lake for the local ice house and building docks with his hero and brother-in-law Alger Mason. Dick, the paragon of our family, perhaps of all humans, would often say that he could only ever hope to be half the man Alger Mason was, claiming most of his lessons were Alger's lessons, and the best of him was from Alger. And so the cycle goes. Dick took great pride in the landscaping business for which he was renowned around the Glens Falls and Lake George region, Mead's Nursery and Garden Center. The people who worked there were his second family and worked by his side, some of them nearly their whole lives. Through generations, he helped and nurtured and shared his wisdom with his employees and customers. He loved and he cared, and his lessons will live on, generation to generation, spreading like the roots of a tree through the people he touched and into their own traditions. He worked at the nursery since 1950 with Madeline and eventually his daughter Mary Ann, and at one time or another, nearly his whole family. It was a place that grew not only plants, but people, educating them in the ways of hard work and care, in the ways of nurturing things to grow. One of the things that grew along with their business was Dick and Madeline's “other nursery,” the seven children they loved so much. Dick gave generously to his family the gift of his time, coming home early from work in the summer slow season to take Madeline and the kids out on the islands of Lake George to picnic and play, or taking all seven of his children skiing at Gore Mountain or ice skating on Lake George, "his' lake. He played with his daughters and sons-in-law on the Bushwhackers hockey team at the Civic Center and took his family on yearly fishing trips to the Gooley Club, one of his favorite sanctuaries. He taught all his children to waterski and canoe and was a dangerous opponent on the tennis court beyond his eightieth year. He would drive hours, late on dark winter's nights, always with Madeline by his side, to watch one of his many grandchildren's sporting events, or recitals, or plays, or anything else that was asked of him. Always with a smile, maybe with a nap, but never with a complaint. The pinnacle of this devotion and perhaps his life was when he found time to be a caring, involved father even as he spent five long years designing, planning, and building his house on Lake George. With his own hands, he created board by board and nail by nail the beautiful home that became the hub of his family since 1966. And he did it paying cash as he went, never taking out a loan or a mortgage, moving forward with each phase only when he had the money to do so. Later in life, Dick's thrift and careful money management allowed him to arrange vacations every two years for his entire thirty-plus person family to the West Indian island of Antigua. Those, as he always said, were his happiest days. The warm sun, the roll of the waves, his beautiful wife beside him, their children and grandchildren and eventually great-grandchildren, playing in the surf, Sandy and their beloved Antiguan family chatting with them in the morning breeze, the sounds of laughter and ribbing and splashing and merriment mixing with the gulls and the swallows and the wind through the tamarinds. The earthly preview of the paradise they now inhabit. Throughout his life, Dick was determined to never take his many blessings for granted. While he suffered great loss throughout his years—from the death of his brother in the infamous Cocoanut Grove Fire in Boston when Dick was twelve, and one of his sisters before he was sixteen, to the loss of his sons, Matthew and Michael later in life, and eventually Madeline and then Pat—he would be the first to say he led a very blessed life. And with his blessings, he blessed so many others: friends, family, community, and the world at large. Quietly and without fanfare, he helped people grow and improve as humans: a loan with a stern warning here, a donation there, a tidbit of knowledge offered in passing. And he led by the greatest example in all things, always holding himself to the highest standard. Drawing from a life that began during the Depression and stretched until Friday morning, he had a few favorite lessons: You can always live on 10% less, and that 10% should go into stocks for your future; When you want to buy something, think about it, and then think about it some more, and then think about it some more after that, and then don't buy it; Follow the rule of the economy of movement, using your energy wisely and efficiently to get more done without wasting effort; And know your grammar, like how to use who and whom and a possessive with a gerund. There are countless mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters who are better because of the example they saw in Dick Mead. People who will raise better children themselves and will help their own friends, family, and neighbors grow and blossom. And these people join the countless trees, shrubs, and flower beds that dot the landscape of northern New York today, planted in some of the most beautiful soil on earth, to stand as living and growing testaments to one of the greatest men to ever live, Richard Orlin "Dick" Mead. And while Dick Mead lives no more, he lives on in all of us who knew him. What was one man is now hundreds made in his design, taught first hand over ninety-one good years on earth. He will be missed by so many, but his lessons and memories will nourish us and enlighten our lives and our families for many generations to come. And so, after a wonderful life, our hero took leave of this world last Friday morning, cutting through the clouds in his Hacker-Craft, chuckling as he splashed the docks of our shore in one final drive by, his hair flying in the wind and his strong hand waving us a Happy Farewell, off into his forever sunset. Charlie Brown, signing out. Oh, and to have seen the reunion when he coasted that Hacker into the sturdy timbers of heaven's gates, his love, his sweetheart, his sun and moon waiting for him in her sundress, ready for a run up the lake with her husband, for whom she had been waiting too many years! Oh, to have seen the reunion of Madeline and Dick! To have seen God’s living definitions of Love and Devotion in their first embrace, reunited by His side, their jobs on earth well done. And as Dick and Madeline stepped hand-in-hand back into the Hacker, Desideratum, to cruise the shores of their new eternal paradise together, the back seats would have been full with their beloved sons, Matthew and Michael, and Dick's brother and two sisters and parents and dog, Ambrose, their boat ringing with song as Tommy Hans took up his station between Matt and Mike to belt out a tune over the engine's deep bellow. What a ride that must have been! And what a welcome we can all expect when each of our days finally comes. Farewell, Dad, farewell, Grandpa, farewell to an exceptional man, we will miss you forever and will all be better because of you. In addition to his parents, Dick was predeceased by his brother Arthur Mead, sisters Lucille Mead and Jane (Mead) Mason; his beloved wife Madeline (O’Connor) Mead; his second wife, Patricia Taylor Mead; his sons Matthew Mead and Michael Mead; and his son-in-law, Thomas Hans. Survivors who are mourning the end of an era are his five control-freak daughters, as he teasingly called them: Linda Mead, Mary Ann Pendergrass, Sheila Brock (John), Carol Enzinna (Robert), and Diane Hans; well-loved grandchildren: Sean Pendergrass (Katherine), Alison Santiago, Andrew Pendergrass (Michelle), Shannon Brock, Lucas Brock (Kelly), Richard Brock (Erin), Megan Enzinna, Nicholas Enzinna Sharp (Laura), Angela Enzinna, Alexander Enzinna, Madeline Hans (fiance Sasha Goodman), Lindsey Hans; 13 beautiful great-grandchildren; numerous nieces and nephews, including his sister Jane’s extensive family-- the beloved and rambunctious Mason clan. Family and friends may call from 5-7 pm on Tuesday, March 30 at Singleton Sullivan Potter Funeral Home, 407 Bay Road, Queensbury. Due to current restrictions, masks are mandatory and a maximum of 70 people are allowed in the building at one time. A Funeral Mass will be celebrated at 11am on Wednesday, March 31 at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church, Mohican Street, Lake George. Rite of Committal will follow at St. Mary’s Cemetery, Main Street, South Glens Falls. In lieu of flowers, donations in Richard’s memory may be made to the Lake George Association, PO Box 408, Lake George, NY 12845. Special thanks from the Mead family to the wonderful caregivers of Kim’s Home Care, the Pines at Glens Falls, and the North Queensbury Rescue Squad.