Richard John Meyer

b. 3 January 1940

m. 9 January 1965

d. 7 July 2025

Richard John “Dick” Meyer passed away peacefully at 2 pm pacific time on July 7, in Portland, Oregon.

Born in Port Townsend WA on January 3, 1940 to Harold and Helen Meyer, his early days were surrounded by the intensity of World War II, as well as its subsequent ending, and the beginning of a new era in America. “Dick”, as he was known, along with sisters Marjorie and Judy, were raised in the Wedgewood neighborhood of north Seattle. His mother Helen was a nurse educator, and his father Harold played various educational roles at Garfield High School in central Seattle. These included being a Civil War history teacher, a P.E. coach, and Jimi Hendrix’s guidance counselor in the late 1950s. Harold was the last person to talk to Jimi at Garfield before he left school for good. He said, “Jimi, you have to come to school.” Jimi was quiet and shy, and just politely left the room. And that was that.

Dick loved the Sciences early and had a voracious appetite for reading and learning. He also was an athlete, excelling in the medium distance races of Track and Field. He had the typical athletic skills laden throughout the Meyer Family...no ball skills, but can run. Eventually settling on the grueling, 2-minute sprint of 880 yards (now the 800m), he competed at both Roosevelt High School and the University of Washington, winning multiple Varsity letters at UW. He also served in the Army Reserve as a Medic at Ft. Lewis, south of Seattle. Dick graduated from Roosevelt in 1958 and UW in 1962, then heading to Palo Alto CA for Graduate Studies at Stanford University.

His wife, then Paulette Ann Merrill, was by his side for more than 60 years. Meeting at Stanford in 1962, Dick was a Graduate Instructor in Paulette's Freshman Biology class. Their love was immediate, and they were married the 9th of January 1965, at the Palo Alto Methodist Church.

Dick's Graduate studies took the newlyweds on adventures all over the California and Washington coasts, studying Marine Science and Microbiology. After stops in Monterey CA, Friday Harbor Island WA and Trinidad CA, the Meyer Family of three settled in the idyllic Redwood forests of Humboldt County CA. Daughter Erika Katrin had joined the fray on March 29th of 1968, when a storm on the island kept Paulette and Dick from flying to the mainland to deliver the couple's first child. Dick completed his 1968 Ph.D. dissertation from Stanford in the genotyping of Pacific coastal abalone. Genotyping was an early precursor to DNA science, which would come shortly thereafter. Also in 1968, Dick accepted a Professor position at Humboldt State University (HSU) in Arcata CA. Now renamed Cal Poly Humboldt, the University today still maintains outstanding departments of Environmental, Biological, and Marine Sciences. Dick's career spanned 30 years in various instructor roles in Biology, Zoology and Microbiology Sciences, serving as Biology Department Chair twice. Together Dick and Paulette also taught a popular course on The History of Biology. With his good friend, poker player, and fellow Professor at HSU, Dr. Gary Brusca, Dick wrote and illustrated The Stomatopod; an Organic Journal of the American Stomatopod Society (A.S.S.) beginning in June 1970. The word Stomatopod translates roughly to “foot in mouth”, which was a perfect analogy for the level of writing contained in this periodical. Subscribers to the parody collection of scientific articles eventually included the prestigious British Museum Library. The Meyer and Brusca families were close and spent many Thanksgiving holidays together through the years. The Brusca children (Joe, Tony, Suzy, James, Lizzie) were close in age to Erika, and their families essentially grew up together.

In 1972, the Family moved into a 1934 Redwood timber Craftsman family home on five acres of forested land, just above the Humboldt Bay eastern watershed. This home at the corner of Redmond Road and Monroe Lane was on the way to Arcata, coming from Eureka on Old Arcata Road, and nestled in the northern edge of the community of Freshwater CA. This village truly was and is a unique place, and in March they welcomed their second child, son Rodrick Harald “Rod”. He was born at four in the morning on March 5th at Trinity Hospital in Arcata. Both children attended Freshwater Elementary and Eureka High Schools between 1973 and 1990. There were many Family trips to Seattle and Minneapolis to see Grandparents and relatives, and by various modes of transport. The train was the most fun, followed closely by flying. However, driving across the country together as a Family in 1970s automative technology was pure Hell on Earth. But we did it anyway. And we survived, barely.

Dick and Paulette were active with Erika and Rod in their clubs and activities like 4H, the Methodist Church, music lessons and several sports teams, all while driving to countless practices, games, performances, sleep overs, you name it. Sometimes a stand-in Coach when needed, but always a big fan, Dick also continued his running career. He completed several full and half marathons and was an active leadership member of the Six Rivers Running Club throughout the 1970s. In 1982, he served as the Race Director for the Avenue of the Giants Marathon in southern Humboldt County. He was recognized by Runner's World magazine for Directing one of the top Marathons in the United States that year.

In the early 1980s, he participated in multiple events of the ultra-running and horse-riding race called the “Levi’s Ride 'n Tie”. Teams would both run on foot and ride horses cross-country through a course in heavy forest and mountainous terrain. These were amazing and wild events to be around, and the horses were always getting loose and had to be chased around. It was all quite exciting.

A chronic toe injury forced Dick to stop running, so he took up cycling in the mid-80s and rode both competitively and for fun for more than a decade. In 1983, son Rod joined him in a 50-mile criterium race in Loleta CA. Also, in the outdoor shop next to the house on Redmond Road, Dick and Rod opened a short-lived bicycle repair business. They spent time collecting all the neighborhood bikes, tearing them down, and cleaning all the components with old toothbrushes and toxic paint thinner. The “Redmond Road Bike Shop” lasted only about two months before revenues dried up, and concerns over liver toxicity closed the business on Paulette's orders.

Dick retired from Humboldt State in 1998 after three decades of service to HSU, and both Erika and Rod completed their educations and were off to the workforce. In December 1995, grand-daughter Brook Morgan was born, Erika's first and only child. He solemnly remarked at Brook’s birth that “Indian babies are the cutest.” Grandpa Dick doted over Brook in her early years in Humboldt County as she was his favorite and the apple-of-his-eye. He absolutely loved being there for Brook’s first six years of childhood. Then finally in 2002, after the Meyer Family had spent over 30 years in northern California, Brook needed a better choice of schools. So they pulled up stakes, sold the Redmond Road property, and moved to Oregon and the neighborhood of SE Portland. Rod had already been living in the Alphabet Neighborhood of NW Portland since 1999, so it was a great time to bring the Family back together in a new western State. In 2003, Rod also moved to SE Portland where he, Erika and Brook shared a house on the south side of Mt Tabor Park, on SE 70th Avenue. Until the time of Dick’s passing, the Meyer Family continued to live in and around Mt Tabor. Dick and Paulette settled into a 1945 Bungalow on the western side of the park, and Erika, Brook and Rod all lived very close by until Brook moved downtown to attend Portland State University in the Fall of 2014. She graduated from Franklin High School the previous June, just a few minutes’ walk from Dick and Paulette’s home on SE 58th Avenue.

Dick enjoyed reading, walking, cooking, brewing beer, watching baseball, tennis, golf, cycling...pretty much any sport. He also formed a close bond with Sarah Beth Cruse, Rod’s partner from 2010-2021. They would love to talk about art, science and gardening at many holiday dinners over the years. Sarah resides in Montreal now, but remains close to Rod, Brook and the Family, spending three or four months a year in Portland.

Dick would also love to walk his dog, a cute and playful Gordon Setter named Robbie, all over Mt Tabor Park every day he could. Sometimes he would cross paths with Rod on a jog from over on SE 70th Avenue, in true serendipity. Dick would say it was just genetic programming and the same bio-clock, nothing else. That’s the Science, he would confidently claim.

Those were all good Family moments and memories of the Meyer crew, post 20th century Humboldt County and now living in P-town, Oregon. It was somehow fitting for Dick to end up exactly halfway back to his childhood home in Seattle. Including their time in Monterey CA during the 1960s, all told Dick and Paulette had decades of incredible, deep and layered exposure to the beautiful Cascadia coastline and Pacific Ocean.

Dick loved gardening and working outside. In Freshwater, he was always cutting, moving or burning branches and sticks in the Redwood trees, sometimes in fires that were not so well-controlled. There is the well-documented story of one early 1980s evening, after burning a large Redwood tree stump on the eastern edge of the property during the day. That night, Paulette took Erika and Rod to see the movie E.T. at the Tri-State theaters about ten minutes away. Meanwhile, the fire had gone underground and was burning the stump from the inside. Dick went to bed and slept hard. So hard, in fact, that he didn’t hear the neighbors trying to break down the front door to tell him the forest was on fire. So without help from the property owner, the Monroe Lane families formed a fire brigade, stringing garden hoses together from our water pump to get the blaze under control. Paulette and the kids returned from the movie to a driveway full of unknown garden hoses, a smoldering tree stump, and now-unhappy neighbors. And Dick slept through the whole thing.

That is the adventure of the Forest Life !

Even in Portland after passing the age of 75 in 2015, he and Paulette always had a garden of roses, herbs and tomato plants. He loved Life, and the Life of outdoor science and adventure, seeking knowledge and understanding in every new experience. He had a unique intensity in his work and Family life, likely due to his ancestral roots in Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland and Greece. He was a fiery, competitive and complex character, and his constant desire to learn was there until the end.

Some of the best Family memories are the myriads of parties, holidays and card games between all the Biology Dept professors at Humboldt State in the 1970s and 80s. They would all convene in one of their colleagues’ homes, where all the children would be locked into one bedroom together, for hours on end. Then the adults would partake in all kinds of home brew, home grown botanicals and organic foods, all while playing endless hands of poker. It was truly a ‘70s northern Cali experience. Dick didn't seem to win big at poker very often, but he was always in the money.

And maybe that's the point. Dick always brought his best and worked hard to provide for his Family. He worked hard and he played hard. Like everything, there were ups and downs, strikes and gutters. But he learned, he competed, he taught, he traveled, he raised children, dogs, horses, cats, chickens, rabbits, he ran, he cycled, he had a Family who loved him, and he had a full and interesting Life.

Dick is survived by his wife Paulette, sisters Margorie Anton and Judy Ogliore, daughter Erika, son Rod and grand-daughter Brook.

In lieu of gifts or flowers, please consider donating to one of the causes that mattered most to Dick –

Department of Biological Sciences, Cal Poly Humboldt, Arcata, CA

https://www.humboldt.edu/biological-sciences

Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc

https://www.plannedparenthood.org/