Richard Stricker, longtime Lansdale Cemetery…
Richard Stricker, longtime Lansdale Cemetery overseer, passes away at 84
Dan Sokil – The Reporter
Richard Stricker is pictured in 2013 after being recognized at a Lansdale Borough Council meeting.
PUBLISHED: November 18, 2015 at 6:47 p.m. | UPDATED: September 24, 2021 at 1:26 a.m.
LANSDALE >> Lansdale has lost one of the town's most iconic public servants, who will soon be laid to rest in a cemetery he worked for decades to preserve.
Richard Stricker, a onetime councilman and member of the Lansdale Cemetery's board of directors for over five decades, passed away Tuesday at age 84.
"I don't know anybody in town that didn't know Dick. The guy is going to be missed," said Fire Marshal Jay Daveler.
Stricker was born in Philadelphia in 1931 and came to the Lansdale area at age 3, graduating from Lansdale High School in 1950, according to his obituary. Stricker worked as a self-employed heating contractor from 1952-59 before joining Clyde S. Walton Inc. in 1959 as their first service technician, and worked for Walton's for more than three decades.
"My father was always experimenting with steam cars, and trying to make a better boiler, that sort of thing, and Richard would come watch him, trail along behind him," said Ray Walton, son of Clyde S.
Walton said Stricker had a "brilliant" mind when fixing and repairing heating systems, and had a knack for persuading local officials to back projects he supported. In the early 1960s, Stricker led an effort to preserve the Lansdale Cemetery after it fell into disrepair, and in 1964 he was named president, superintendent, curator and record keeper of the cemetery. He remained involved in maintaining the cemetery and successfully identified nearly all of the more than 3,700 people buried there.
"He really took over as the custodian, superintendent, and jack-of-all-trades for that cemetery. We have no idea, and even he had no idea, how much of his own money he put in to keep the place decent: he paid to get the grass cut, the tombstones reset, and whatever else needed to be done," said Lansdale Historical Society President Dick Shearer.
"For all the bluster, he was quite a character, and he really had a heart of gold," he said.
Burial records for the cemetery were often incomplete when Stricker took over, Shearer said, so the two spent countless hours digging through historical society and other archives to find obituaries for those buried, and Stricker then organized the records by name and year. "He categorized the records in such a way that now we have a pretty good idea of, not only who's buried where, but also the life stories of these people. It was a labor of love for him, and something he stuck with until the very end," Shearer said.
In 2012-13, Stricker and other cemetery board members approached Lansdale Borough to start a process that led to the town taking over the cemetery, and the 1960s-era board members were eventually replaced by current council members and staff. At that time Stricker said he had cared for the cemetery since his teenage years, and Parks and Recreation Director Carl Saldutti said Wednesday Stricker was "elated" the takeover went smoothly, and never hesitated to share his opinions.
"He was a very vocal council person, always looking to do what he thought was best for the community, and trying to keep things moving forward," Saldutti said.
Those projects included a new home for the Fairmount Fire Company at the corner of Vine Street and Susquehanna Avenue in the late 1970s.
"Dick was a very, very big supporter of the fire department, and the new building. He spent a lot of time trying to obtain the funds, through borough council, just acting like the good citizen that Dick always was," Daveler said.
"If somebody needed help, you could always count on him," he said.
Stricker served on borough council from 1976-80, and aside from the firehouse project also pushed for an early version of what ultimately became the borough's Wood-Vine Connector route, a bypass meant to take drivers away from Broad and Main streets. Stricker led a parade of classic cars driving down that route when it opened in late 2014, and Walton and Shearer said Stricker had a vision of an even larger route he was never afraid to share.
"Sometimes with Stricker, you didn't want to get too much detail because you would be there for two or three hours, but he was by far the most informed person in the town, about everything, including things people would tell him about their personal lives," Shearer said.
In the late 1990s, Stricker also led an effort to expand the historical society's holdings on Jenkins Avenue to include a home next to their historic Jenkins Homestead, which now houses the society's research center. Shearer said that project was prompted when Stricker saw a 'For Sale' sign next door.
"Stricker comes walking in, and said 'Do you see that out there?' I said 'Yes, it's a For Sale sign.' He said, 'I think the borough should buy that for us,'" Shearer said.
"I said, 'Richard, they're already letting us use the facility, shoveling our walks for us, cutting the grass, and paying for a lot of our utilities. Don't you think you're pushing it too much?' He said, 'Well, it never hurts to try,' and sure enough, within about a week I got word that the borough was going into negotiations to buy the place."
In recent years, Stricker worked with the borough's technology department to create an online map of those buried in the cemetery and its mausoleum, and Shearer said on Wednesday that Stricker made sure to reserve an upper level spot in the mausoleum for himself.
"When you go in the front doors of the mausoleum, if you look straight toward the back there's a wall of crypts, and he has the one, I believe, at the very top that looks directly out at the front door," Shearer said.
"He chose that one for himself because he said he always wanted to be able to know who was coming and going out of the mausoleum. He was very proud of that, and he thought that was his reward for taking care of the cemetery for so long – he got the best view," he said.
Lansdale Borough Council started Wednesday night's meeting with a moment of silence to remember Stricker, and council President Leon Angelichio asked the public to keep his family in their prayers.
Borough Manager Jake Ziegler said Stricker was one of the first councilmen he met when hired as utilities director, and over the years the two took many tours around town.
"Most, if not all, of those tours wound up either passing through or ending up at the cemetery. It was really close to Dick's heart," Ziegler said,
Friends and relatives can pay respects during services at Huff & Lakjer Funeral Home, 701 Derstine Ave. in Lansdale, from 6 to 8 p.m. Nov. 27 and starting at 9 a.m. on Nov. 28. A funeral service will be held at 10 a.m., followed by entombment in the mausoleum. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Stricker's memory to the Lansdale Historical Society, 137 Jenkins Ave., Lansdale, PA 19446.