Richard Lee Peterson

In Loving Memory of Richard Lee Peterson

Richard (Dick) Lee Peterson, 82, of Port Orchard, Washington, passed away at home on April 23, 2025.

Dick was born on June 9, 1942, in Klamath Falls, Oregon, to Burton and Elizabeth Peterson. His family lived in Dorris, California, for a few years before relocating to Grants Pass, Oregon. In 1950, Dick’s father accepted a new position at Trail Creek Lumber Company, and the family — Burton, Elizabeth, Dick, and his three brothers — moved to a remote sawmill lumber camp on the West Fork of Trail Creek, about five miles from the nearest town of Trail, Oregon. They lived at the lumber camp for five years, during which time Dick attended Elk Trail School. This period of Dick’s life became the source of many exciting stories that Dick loved to share with his children and grandchildren — including a sawmill fire started by one of his brothers, skinny dipping in the creek, and driving a 1933 Chevy pickup beginning at the age of 11.

In 1955, Dick’s family moved to a two-acre farm in Medford, Oregon, where his father built their new home. Dick attended school there, helped with farm chores, and worked alongside migrant farm workers in the pear orchards behind their property. He graduated from Medford High School in 1960.

Dick went on to earn a bachelor's degree in anthropology and a master’s degree in nuclear engineering from Washington State University. While attending WSU, he worked at the WSU Carbon-14 Dating Lab and the WSU Nuclear Reactor. It was at WSU, in 1964, that he met his future wife, Joanne Enzler. They married in January 1966, and their daughters, Patti and MaryAnn, were born while the young family lived in WSU’s student housing.

After graduation, Dick relocated his family to East Hartford, Connecticut, where he worked for United Aircraft. In 1971, he accepted a position at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, as a nuclear engineer — a role he held until his retirement in 1996. That same year, 1971, Dick and Joanne built their home on Red Spruce Drive in Port Orchard, where they raised their family and lived for 51 years.

Dick was passionate about weightlifting, running, hiking, biking, living a healthy lifestyle, and keeping his home and yard in pristine condition. His greatest joy, however, was his family — Joanne, his daughters, his son-in-law, and his grandchildren. He cherished family camping trips on the Sol Duc River and other family vacations, spirited games of Trivial Pursuit and cribbage, and simply spending time with his children and grandchildren. In his later years, he especially enjoyed playing Rummikub with his family.

Dick is survived by his beloved wife of 59 years, Joanne; daughters Patti VanDyke and MaryAnn Peterson; son-in-law Jim VanDyke; grandchildren Austin VanDyke, Blake VanDyke (Liz VanDyke), Elizabeth Vergillo, Reece Rupp, and Riley Rupp; and great-grandchildren Daisy VanDyke and Cedar VanDyke. He is also survived by his brothers Frank Peterson (Barbara), Burton Peterson (Linda), and Larry Peterson, and his nephew Erik Peterson, and nieces Holly Roso and Varonica Buchanan.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Michael J. Fox Foundation to support Parkinson's research at give.michaeljfox.org.

Some of his family’s favorite memories of Dick:

Joanne Peterson, wife: I met Dick in 1964 at WSU’s Perham Hall where I was living with my roommate, Susan. Susan had her brother, Charlie, over to visit, and Charlie brought his roommate, Dick Peterson. That was it. The rest was history. We married January 29, 1966, and I completed my BA in business in June 1966. We lived in Pullman while he completed his master’s degree in nuclear engineering in 1970. Our two beautiful daughters were born in the little Pullman hospital in 1967and 1969. After a year in Connecticut, we moved our family back to the Pacific NW to Port Orchard. Dick was devoted to our family. He enjoyed time with me and our girls as they grew up and left to start their own families. He loved topping trees, biking, weight lifting, running, maintaining the yard, and especially spending time with his family. He was a caring, thoughtful, hard-working man who took time to appreciate family and life in general. He was my soul mate and my confidant. He was always there for me in times of joy and times of sorrow. He made me complete and I am a better person because of him. He led me through good and hard times. Our years together have left me with heartfelt memories of lives well lived and experienced. I will miss him so very much. I will think of him with visions of all the events and experiences we shared and all the pain and sorrow as well as the joy and the love. Above all, all the love.

Frank Peterson, Older Brother: Here is a favorite memory from Dick and my early days growing up in Southern Oregon: We lived in a lumber camp near the very small town of Trail about 30 miles north of Medford, Oregon, where we spent much of our time outdoors hiking and exploring the nearby trails and forests. When we were around 11 and 12 years old our Dad gifted us with an old beat-up 1933 Chevy pick-up without any roof. As long as we stayed off all public roads we were allowed to explore all the surrounding logging roads, some no longer used and others still active. Unfortunately the fuel gauge on the old pick-up was not very accurate and we sometimes ran out of gas and one of us had to hike 2-3 miles back home to get more gas. Dick was the designated gas retriever while I stayed and guarded the vehicle. I'm not sure what was more of a public hazard; meeting a speeding log truck with a full load of logs coming around a blind curve or suddenly facing Dick and Frank Peterson driving our 1933 hotrod Chevy pick-up!

Burt Peterson, younger brother: This is my favorite all time memory of Dick when we were young and not encumbered with the details and responsibilities of life: I remember riding around in "Jasper" a Studebaker car that Dick owned in college. We were looking for dorm castoffs at the end of the WSU school year. Dick and his roommates furnished their house this way. Eventually we found a couch that he liked and we hoisted it on Jasper's roof and away we went. No tie down straps, no problem. Dick steering with one hand and holding onto a couch leg with the other. I held onto another leg as best as I could as Jasper went up and down hills and around corners. Dick was acting like this was all pretty normal. I was having a ball with my big brother.

Patti VanDyke, Dick's eldest daughter: I don't think I will ever run out of good memories... There were so many. 

Sledding down the big hill in front of our house. 

The time he made homemade ice skates when the pond froze so solid that all the neighborhood kids were skating on it.

When he taught us how to play Fox and Geese in the snow in the back yard. He was always the Fox.

Being read to.

Memorizing my times tables with him.

Being tucked in at night. I felt safe and loved and I thought my Dad could do anything.

When he'd back the car out of the garage so we could roller skate in there while he worked.

The times he would pull out his box of scrap wood and let us go at it with a hammer and nails while he worked at his bench.

Mushroom hunting in the forest.

Oyster hunting on the beach and looking for crabs while he shucked them.

Listening to the spooky radio show with him.

"Helping" him chop wood and fell trees.

Playing monopoly with him.

Having fun with him and MaryAnn while my Mom taught night school - listening to records together, making dinner and inventing games.

How he always said he preferred the burnt cookies.

Trying to catch minnows at the marina.

Him playing softball and football in the back yard with all the neighborhood kids.

Swimming, floating and rowing at the lake.

Spending the night outside in the backyard.

Waking up early at his parents' in Medford and sitting on his lap while he played cribbage with Grandpa Peterson.

Picking blackberries with him so Mom could make a pie.

Drives in the Volkswagen.

Going for walks with him.

Hearing all the old stories whenever all the brothers would all be together. MaryAnn, Erik, and I would be very quiet so they would forget about us and start the stories we loved to hear over and over. I hope I can remember them...

Most of all holding his hand as a little girl and again in the last few days of his life.

MaryAnn Peterson, Dick’s youngest daughter: Dad was a stickler for routines, cleanliness, and order. Everything had a place and he was always doing something productive. When I was a kid, our family dinners were lessons in how to hold our silverware properly, how to avoid slurping our soup, to keep our napkins in our laps, and not to put our elbows on the table. I remember him teaching me the best pattern for vacuuming once and how to properly clean out a window sill with a knife and a toothbrush.

This made the times when he had a grin on his face and was breaking the rules all the more fun. I loved the short period of time when my mom was teaching a night class at Olympic College and he declared that Patti and I couldn’t let our feet touch the floor when she wasn’t home - we had to navigate through the house by jumping from one piece of furniture or countertop to the next or grab onto him as he walked by and hang on. Driving lessons with him were also a highlight of my memories of him. Starting when I was 11 and Patti was 13, we spent many Sundays with him teaching us to drive the VW bug on the grounds of Orchard Heights Elementary and Marcus Whitman Junior High. These lessons usually included obstacle courses he set up and driving in reverse through the narrow trails between Orchard Heights and Marcus. He made sure to teach us the important things - how to do burnouts on a manual transmission, how to double-clutch it, how to start the bug by popping the clutch (which came in handy a few times), and how to control the clutch so not to roll backwards when starting from a standstill on a hill. Many times over the years, he took great pride in telling others that my sister and I did all the driving of the rental car on our family vacation in Hawaii when I was 13.

A few of my other treasured memories of my dad from my childhood: weenie roasts in the backyard, listening to him read books to Patti and me before bed (his favorites were Donkey, Donkey and Mrs. Squirrel’s Nut Cakes), helping him in the garage when he worked on the VW bug or Pontiac while taking sips of his beer, shooting hoops with him in the cul-de-sac, hearing the buzz of his chainsaw at the break of dawn on weekend mornings (not a fond memory for our neighbors, I’m sure), playing Fox and Goose with him in the snow, walks with him through the woods listening to him explain how to identify different trees or catching toads, and helping him build the dock for our lot on Collins Lake.

As a teenager, I have fond memories of our many runs together and spending time with him in the gym, riding on the back of his motorcycle and making plans with him for a motorcycle trip that we never took, and listening to him and Carl raz each other and cook up crazy plans.

Over the years, it was always entertaining to hear his many plots for the pesky squirrels and raccoons, and later on the deer. I always loved playing backgammon, Trivial Pursuit, cribbage, and Rummikub with him and sharing our Wordle results with each other (he was always on the hunt for the perfect beginning word).

I will always miss him.

Jim VanDyke, Son-in-Law: My first time meeting him, I ate half of Patti’s burger at Red Robin, and when I picked it up, I realized that he was waiting to eat it himself.

Elizabeth Vergillo, Granddaughter: While many have appreciated and enjoyed knowing him, none were as fortunate as his grandchildren. Grandpa Dick could put up a tough exterior, but not with us. His first grandchild and only granddaughter, I was born just as Grandpa retired from the shipyard. He of course had a special bond with each of his grandsons as well (fueling interests in tree management, physics and engineering, and spaghetti westerns, among other shared pursuits), but I will comment here on my own experience. Few people are lucky enough to have grandparents who are so involved in their lives, and I got to experience it during a very happy time - the golden years of his retirement. From the time I was in pre-K through high school, Grandpa (and later Grandma, too) picked me up one night a week to spend the evening with them. Sometimes Grandpa and I would go down to the waterfront and walk on the rocks while he told stories of rats crawling beneath the boardwalk, or recounted a book about a man cutting his own arm off to survive (important things for a kid to hear). Or, we might build a fort in the big woods while he told me about snipe hunting (thankfully, I was never invited to join the hunt). Mostly we just went on little adventures and talked. That’s what made him such a good grandparent - he was always present, made us feel like we were seen and heard, and was never short on interesting content. Grandpa knew he was responsible for teaching me all the behaviors a little girl should know: how to walk on the kitchen counters to fetch the cinnamon sugar (when Grandma wasn’t home, of course), how to slurp Jell-O off the table, how to burp, and how to spit your gum out the window without it sticking to the truck. That’s not to say that Grandpa was entirely without rules for us. We (the grandchildren) all understood that orange juice must be drunk from a baby bottle if we’re to drink it in the family room. Though it was a measure to protect the white carpet, it became a treat and embarrassingly continued into our teen years. Once, on a trip down to Eugene with Grandma and Grandpa (to scope out my future graduate school, which he ardently supported) we saw a truck hauling several new cars. Grandpa asked me “If you had that truck, who would you give each car to?”. He then told me which of his daughters and grandchildren would receive each car and why. He told me that he played that game often. He was always looking out for us, worrying about us, and trying to help in any way he could. I have been incredibly fortunate and am now so fortunate to have so many memories. But there is one thing I hope to remember most: his laugh. Grandpa had a darn good laugh and I already miss it.

Carl Graf, best friend and “adopted” son: I have sooo many favorite memories of Dick that it would be impossible to pick just one, Jamaica, Alaska trip, making the garden together, or building our trivial pursuit board. However, through all the memories what stands out is Dick’s unique trait to seek out other people's stories. Dick would always ask other people about their lives, experiences, trials and tribulations and he was completely engaged in each person's journey. He was the most genuine person I’ve ever met and had by far the most impact on my life more than any other male person. Dick’s ability to draw out each person’s story making them feel extremely important was remarkable, he would ask about your job, relationships, adventures, struggles and of course any surgeries you might have had. He was the most real and sincere human I have ever had the pleasure to have known and he will truly be missed.

Cheryl Graf, friend: From the moment I met Dick and Joanne decades ago, I felt an instant sense of belonging and love. I soon realized that Dick was a strong father figure and role model, and I’ve benefited greatly from his guidance. My husband, in particular, learned a lot from Dick. Dick filled the void I felt in my family. I’ve always felt blessed and valued in the Peterson family. One of my fondest memories is when Carl and I welcomed our first child into the world. Dick went for a newborn checkup with us and I cherished the moment of him tenderly holding our daughter in his arms. I also have many wonderful memories of vacations we took with Dick and Joanne. Playing Trivial Pursuit with Dick became a special and enjoyable experience. I always looked forward to Dick’s phone calls, as he always cared deeply about our lives and wanted to know what was happening. Dick and Joanne have always been like “parents” to us and we’ve always been grateful for their love and support. I will greatly miss our political discussions with Dick. Most of all, I will miss the ability to call Dick on the phone and catch up on all the life updates.