PERRIS, Calif. – Richard “Dick” Libby Plummer died of natural causes in Perris, Calif., on Dec. 23, 2023.
He leaves his wife Phyllis (Wheeler) Plummer of 75 years; son Theodore Plummer, daughter Susan Sigerson; grandsons Ted Tipton and Clifford Plummer; four great-grandchildren; and a great-great-grandchild.
Dick was born in Portland, Maine on April 24, 1924, the son of Sampson and Grace Plummer. He graduated from the original Falmouth High School in 1942, and served in the US Air Force from March 1943 to October 1945. He landed in Normandy soon after D-Day.
After the war he drove Falmouth school buses under his father, a beloved head janitor for whom the high school was named, until he realized he had more to give. So he graduated from Gorham Teachers College in 1954, and with no background in deaf culture graduated from Clark School For The Deaf in Massachusetts in 1955. He became fluent in sign language and simultaneously used that long after retirement, while he spoke orally. He taught at the Deaf School on Mackworth Island for five years, then at the school for the deaf in Riverside, Calif., where he retired. His wife retired after 24 years of teaching. They began a busy life between their homes in California, Maine and Florida. Dick drove one of their motor homes between those places, until in 2014 they sold their last motor home and houses outside of California. He had many friends and a good sense of humor.
This is being submitted to the Portland Press Herald with the permission of Dick’s survivors, so as to inform Mainers who may remember Dick as president of his high school senior class, basketball star, a Maine resident. He was my best friend from high school onward.
Dick and I shared many experiences: foot, horse rental, cars, canoe, small planes. We climbed Mt. Washington in October 1941: four hours up the eight mile auto road, two hours down. My wife Margery and I visited them often in Maine, and in Florida and California by car, and in our small plane in 1970.
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