- Date Of Birth: March 28, 1935
- Date Of Death: December 6, 2017
- State: Maryland
Richard Henry McKenna passed away unexpectedly on December 6, 2017, at the age of 82.
He was loved and adored by his family and will be dearly missed.
Richard (a.k.a “Pop”) was born in The Bronx, NY, on March 28, 1935, the youngest child of Susan and Bartholomew McKenna.
As his Irish mother would say, he was “a gentleman and a scholar” from an early age, and he basked in the love and attention of older siblings John, Margaret, Madeline and Frances. Later in life, after he had passed on his love of baseball, movies and humor to his kids, he fondly remembered hearing the roar of the Yankee Stadium crowd from his street and laughing uproariously at the Marx Brothers at the local movie theater.
He earned a scholarship to St. Agnes High School in Manhattan, then Fordham University, where he studied business. In 1955, Richard entered the army reserves and served for twelve years. During this same period, he entered Fordham Law School and subsequently earned an M.B.A. from Columbia University.
He was working as a telecommunications attorney in 1967, when he attended a dinner party featuring numerous international people of interest, including a beautiful Basque woman from San Sebastian, Spain. Lucy was to become the love of his life; they married in 1969.
As a telecommunications attorney for ITT, then GTE, then Verizon, Richard traveled widely, including South Africa and Egypt. He traveled to Spain several times to meet his wife’s extended family, though throughout his life he stuck with his preference for French language and cuisine (and especially desserts like crème brulee, Lucy’s specialty).
When the family relocated with Verizon to a suburb of Dallas, Texas, Richard’s journeys increasingly took place in his mind, as he began in 1992 to research and write a series of epic historical novels set in Ancient Rome, a project that took up most of his spare time while working and, after retirement, nearly every waking hour. His enthusiasm for the subject and boundless creative energy was a thing to behold, admire, and emulate. He published “Power of the Sword” in 2013, the culmination of decades of work and a tremendous scholarly accomplishment that made his family very proud.
In the meantime, starting in 2003 and up to last year, he had the great pleasure of watching the family grow with seven grandchildren born to his four children. Being a grandfather suited Richard perfectly, and he appreciated the time he spent with his wife watching the grandchildren, generously offering free daycare and sleepovers, patiently reading London Bridge is Falling Down or Danny and the Dinosaur for the millionth time, or just goofing around. The move in 2015 from Texas to Ellicott City, Maryland, enabled him to have almost constant contact with his grandchildren, including four new ones born in the New York area, all of whom adored “Pop.
Richard will live on in the many stories and memories his family and friends have of him. He is survived by his wife Lucy; his sisters Madeline and Frances; his children and their spouses (Susan and Peter; Richard and Valerie; Edward and Sarah; Matthew and Kimberly), and his grandchildren (Harrison, Luke, Colin, Ames, Owen, Mirabel and Sasha).
