Richard Warren Healey

The Healey family patriarch, Dick Healey, has left us and gone to his eternal reward. Richard Warren Healey, husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather, took a turn for the worse and died rather suddenly at the age of 92 on Sunday evening, July 23, 2023, at the Aberdeen Memory Care facility in South Tulsa where he had lived for nearly 7 months. Hospice care was initiated as the advanced dementia and congestive heart failure disease finally took its toll and his passing was comfortable and without pain. He was loved by all the staff and residents as he continued to be a real gentleman, humbly thankful for all they did for him. Periodically he would have truly lucid memory moments that allowed him to recognize his children and feed their needs as he would address them by name and tell them that he loved them very much and appreciated everything that they were doing for him. Dick, as he was known, lived a long and loving life that began in Webster Grove, Missouri, born to Edwin and Elizabeth Healey on October 11, 1930. Dick had one brother, five years older, also named Edwin but nicknamed Bud. Dick and Bud grew up in Webster Grove with cousins, friends, aunts and uncles in the greater Saint Louis area. He was an exceedingly bright and outgoing young man. When he was of age, he joined the Air Force with hopes of flying. Although those hopes were never realized, he became an aircraft mechanics instructor, writing curriculum and teaching classes on airplane hydraulic systems. It was while working for the Air Force that his best friend, Jack Palmer, set him up on a blind date with a beautiful young woman from Tulsa, Jacqueline Pritchard. A romance bloomed and they were soon married on August 31, 1952, and began their lives together in Champaign, Illinois, where Dick was stationed and where they would live during his enlisted time with the Air Force. Two and a half years after they were married, they welcomed their first little girl (Drusilla Frances) into the world. They moved back to Tulsa and began raising a family where they added to their numbers, in twenty-month intervals, a boy (Robert Warren) and then a set of fraternal twins (James Edwin, Joanna Elizabeth). While raising a family Dick worked in the aircraft industry by day and then for seven years went to night-school at Tulsa University by night, earning a Bachelor of Science degree Business Administration in 1962. Dick always applied himself in business honestly and with great integrity. Dick discovered he was very talented in sales and teaching. After his aviation start, he went into sales and rose to the level of General Manager in several companies, most notably in the fishing industry. Later, he threw himself into sales, brokerage and teaching in the real estate industry where his natural gifts continued to serve him well. In his twilight years as dementia became a limitation, he worked as a greeter at Walmart in Mount Vernon, Missouri, where he knew everyone in town, and they all knew him. He was widely respected and loved. Dick and Jacquie took seriously their responsibilities in raising their family, keeping their children involved in community and church activities, primarily here at Boston Avenue Church. They were also active in the Home Builders class, even serving as presidents for a while. Likewise, they made sure their kids were involved in summer camps, Sunday school, religious education, fishing, bowling, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, church choir, sports, golfing, little-league baseball, walking, running and every other thing they could involve their family in. Boy Scouts was one of Dick's particular passions and he threw himself into forming young boys into men as an assistant Troop Leader under Walley Wosencraft in Troop 20. In 1986 Dick and Jacquie moved to Mt Vernon, Missouri, for a job opportunity for Dick, where they lived for more than 35 years. In the spring of 2020 when they could no longer keep up with their home and 5 acres in the country in Mt Vernon Missouri, Dick and Jacquie moved back to Tulsa to live with their youngest daughter and her husband (Joanna and Eric Bentley) until they moved into assisted living at the "Legend of Tulsa Hills" in early 2022. In that year they celebrated 70 years of marriage, surrounded by friends and family. After Jacquie's death in November 2022, Dick moved to the Aberdeen Memory Care where he lived for nearly 7 months until his death on July 23, 2023. Dick is pre-deceased by his wife of 70 years, Jacquie; and his grandson Craig James, son of his son James Edwin. He is survived by his four children, Drusilla Francis Healey (Tulsa), Robert Warren Healey and wife Adele (Chouteau), James Edwin Healey and wife Sylvie Claudine Healey (Switzerland) and Joanna Elizabeth [Healey] Bentley and her husband Eric Norman Bentley (Tulsa), and 14 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren. In loving remembrance, we children of Dick Healey celebrate the life he lived. Dru, Bob, Jim and Joanna Memorial Services celebrating a life well lived will be 1:00 PM Monday, July 31, 2023 at the Rose Chapel, Boston Avenue United Methodist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Richard Warren Healey

October 11, 1930 - July 23, 2023