Richard "Dick" T. Schroeder

Richard “Dick” Thorn Schroeder, 91, died peacefully on January 18 while surrounded by family and after a battle with leukemia. A native of St. Paul, Minnesota, he served in the U.S Army Air Corps in Europe during World War II, earning a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. Taking advantage of the G.I. Bill upon his honorable discharge, he graduated in three years from the University of Minnesota with a degree in electrical engineering. While in college, he worked at the university’s bookstore where he met, fell in love with and married his wife Dolores. Offered a job at the Boeing Co. in Seattle, Washington after graduating him and Dolores moved across the country to the Pacific Northwest in 1949.

Dick spent his entire career working on defense projects for the aerospace company, from the Minuteman missile to the AWACS program. While with Boeing, he was briefly transferred to Ohio and twice to Albuquerque. Not long after he retired, he and Dolores traveled to Europe to revisit WWII sites and to tour many of the countries they had always wanted to see. In 1986, the couple relocated to Albuquerque where they built their retirement home.

Dick was a tall man who had a great dry sense of humor, was handy at auto upkeep and a great carpenter who designed and finished the interior of his retirement home, from its tiled floors and countertops to its aspen tongue-in-groove vaulted ceilings and cabinet work. He enjoyed weekly visits to The Rage Café in Bernalillo and the occasional carne adovada burrito at El Pinto. Up until 2014, he and Dolores made annual road trips to the family’s favorite U.S. park, the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, and to see family in Washington state and Minnesota and the fall colors along Lake Superior. Thanks to him, his family saw or visited nearly every national park in the U.S. and Canada, as well as western Mexico.
Richard is survived by his wife Dolores, with whom he would have celebrated 67 years of marriage in March, and his two daughters, Kathi Schroeder of Albuquerque and Chris Schroeder of Arlington, Washington, as well as grandson Jason Harley and his wife Danielle of Lake Stevens, Washington, two great-grandchildren, Taylor and Van, and two nephews, Geoff Wilson of Indianola, Washington, and Dr. Greg Wilson of Honolulu, Hawaii. Richard was preceded in death by his parents and his sister and brother-in-law.

Although Daniels Family Funeral Services is managing Dick’s final wishes, no memorial services are planned. In lieu of flowers or other thoughtful remembrances, donations in Dick’s name to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society or the American Diabetes Association would horn his memory.