Richard "Dick" Swindell

March 29, 1932 - August 29, 2020

Richard Clinton Swindell March 29, 1932 Richard C. Swindell, age 88, went to his eternal home on August 29, 2020 in Wenatchee, WA. Born March 29, 1932 in the back hills country of Hext, Texas to the late J.D. (Buster) and Lucy Swindell. Dick and his parents, along with his other siblings, became part of America’s movement west as the Dust Bowl and Great Depression drove his family from the historic Menard, TX. While growing up and attending multiple schools, he held many jobs, like selling the Saturday Evening Post Magazine in 5th grade in Oklahoma City, to picking fruit in California and Washington. He picked cotton, held a paper route, worked in a pool hall cleaning up, he was a cat skinner/heavy equipment operator in Yuma, Arizona and California and was also a truck driver in Holtville, CA before the family moved North to Washington State, landing along the river bank at Monitor, WA living in a large army tent in 1947. He attended school at Cashmere High School, was a starting player his junior year playing tennis that ended when he broke his leg. In the summer of 1948, he and the family moved to Chelan where his father worked for the Yacht Club. Wanting to graduate with his senior classmates in Holtville, CA, he returned by bus in 1949 to finish school while staying with his aunt and uncle. Dick, as he liked to be called, returned to Wenatchee after completing his senior year to find and marry a lovely girl named Leah Mae Jones and would marry her on July 6th, 1952. She was 17, Dick 20 years old. Seven months later, he was drafted into the Army and attended boot camp at Camp Roberts, in California. After basic training and a stint states side as prison guard, Dick and Leah would have their first child before he was sent overseas to Camp Eta Jima, Japan, to train as a firefighter. Dick graduated with honors, then was sent on to Korea. He would become Fire Chief of the 7th and 25th Division. A highlight for him was when he met and talked up-close to Marilyn Monroe in 1954 while she was in Korea entertaining the troops. Dick was honorably discharged in 1955, after which he and Leah resumed their life together. Dick studied bodywork on a G.I. Bill and opened his own custom body shop next to their first home in East Wenatchee and ran it for 5 years . He bought totaled cars, rebuilt and sold them. He also worked on other clients’ cars including doing insurance repair work, but his passion was building and painting custom hot rods and higher end antique cars. Dick and Leah would now have two more children, Dan and Mike while living there. During this time in their life, they Co-founded The Wenatchee Valley Antique Auto Club. With the help of Leah, and his parents, Dick would restore a prized 1926 Pierce-Arrow convertible which was used in the Walt Disney movie “Run Appaloosa Run” which was filmed in Omak, WA. Later Dick and Leah acquired a 1930 Rolls Royce, that was rich with history, and was featured in The Wenatchee World paper. Dick, wanting to do something different with his life, decided to go into the insurance adjusting business. He started his career with General Adjustment Bureau (GAB) in 1962 and continued until 1969 becoming certified in all lines of insurance adjusting. When GAB started downsizing, in order to stay in the adjusting business, he and Leah started their own adjusting business- Washington Insurance Services and ran it for 1 year until he was hired by a competitor company- Grange Insurance Association from 1971-1976. Dick also adjusted claims for Forney Insurance Agency in Chelan, WA before landing with Crawford and Company out of Atlanta, Georgia. Ultimately, he became one of their chief Storm Insurance Adjusters and through the years he and Leah covered a total of twenty-three major disasters. From hailstorms to Hurricanes, Tornados, Earthquakes, Floods and Windstorms, these storms took them out on the road for months at a time and from coast to coast including Canada – they loved it. While the family was growing older, they acquired motorcycles and rode as a family in the mountains, camping out. Dick was chosen by the editors of Trail Cycle Magazine to highlight the wonderful local trails and was featured in the June 1970 issue. Dicks riding skill found him being dared into riding his 250 Montesa up and over submerged logs in the middle of Lake Julius. Happy times! Another highlight of his life was when after his children all joined the Wenatchee Youth Circus, he bought the Pershing Street home in Wenatchee, which on a side lot had been hosting the Wenatchee Youth Circus. Here, in the family’s back yard was the motorcycle high wire, high-wire, trapeze, and other equipment where the kids would practice in the off season. In the summer of 1975 Dick moved his family to Lakeside in Lake Chelan before in 1978, Dick’s aging parents prompted a move to Ellensburg, WA where he purchased and ran the Hillcrest Mobile Home Park. It was there he learned, along with other family members how to make beautiful jewelry out of Ellensburg Blue rocks found only in the Ellensburg area. While living there, Mt. St. Helens blew covering them and their residents in an acrid, sulfur darkness. After the deaths of his parents, Dick and Leah decided to sell the mobile home park and move back to Chelan. Purchasing the historic 1903 Victorian- Yetter House and had it moved on to an empty lot along the south shore of Lake Chelan. They would call this home “The Christmas House”. Many good memories were created there as a family. In time, they would purchase another house, have it moved and turned into a bed and breakfast to run. Always finding new ways to enrich his life and others, Dick decided to run for and win a position on the City Council in Chelan, where he served for 8 years and was also instrumental in getting the regional bus system- Link up and running. He was a member of the Link Board of Directors from 1990-1997. Dick loved going cross country on RV trips with Leah, riding trail bikes with family members in the mountains, and later racing motocross and cross country with his two sons and brother. He loved boating, fishing, jewelry making, reading, photography and refurbishing his Victorian home. Dick led one full life! Dick was preceded in death by his parents, Buster and Lucy Swindell, a son Michael C. Swindell (1980), Two sisters Janis Swindell (2006), Billie Bliss (2007) and finally by his loving wife in 2014 after 62 years of marriage. He is survived by his brother, Thomas Swindell (Gayle) of Rock Island, his daughter, Rickie L. Chew of Reedsport, WA and son, Dan Swindell (Virginia) of Wenatchee, WA. Six grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.