Richard W. McGaw
Franklin, NH – Richard Williams McGaw, of Hanover, NH, passed away peacefully in Concord, NH on May 5, 2025, at the age of 96. He was living in Franklin, NH. He was born in Wooster, OH on April 12, 1929, and grew up in the Cleveland area. He attended the University of Michigan, where he met his wife, Eugenia Wells, singing in the University Choir. They were married on September 8, 1952, in Ann Arbor. While at college, he was a member of the Navy ROTC, after which he served as an officer on a destroyer for four years and in the Naval Reserve for another ten years. He returned to school and received his Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering from Harvard. He and his family moved to the Hanover, NH area in 1962, and designed and helped build their home on Rayton Road, moving in in 1965. He conducted research at the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory for 20 years. After retiring from CRREL, he spent 10 years as a school bus driver and consulted on environmental remediation projects for the EPA.
He was especially fond of singing. He sang in the Norwich (VT) Congregational Choir for almost 60 years and was a charter member of the Bel Canto Chamber Singers. He also performed solos and duets with Genie at church and sang in a popular barbershop quartet. He served as chair of the Hanover Tree Committee (responsible for planting trees along Main Street and for replacing many of the elms around the Dartmouth Green and along East Wheelock Street damaged by Dutch Elm Disease) and enjoyed Scottish Country Dancing. Other interests included playing tennis, hiking and camping, gardening, building stone walls, and closely following the New England sports teams, especially the Red Sox and Patriots.
He was predeceased by his wife Genie and is survived by his sons David Gordon McGaw (Canaan, NH), Peter Wells McGaw (Walnut Creek, CA), Jonathan Williams McGaw (Huntington Beach, CA) and Stephen Carlton McGaw (Seattle, WA), as well as his eight grandchildren and four great grandchildren.
No memorial service is scheduled at this time, but gifts to the Norwich Congregational Church would be appreciated.
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