by Find a Grave

Copyright © "Bell"

Dick was born November 27, 1920 in Dallas. He attended Bradfield Elementary, Highland Park High School and SMU. After listening to the radio broadcast of Charles Lindbergh's Trans-Atlantic flight, he knew he wanted to fly. He cleaned and tended airplanes at Love Field to earn money for flying lessons. At age 13, he piled pillows on the pilot's seat of a Fleet biplane and took off on his first solo flight. Over 75 years later, he was still flying.

He met and married Ethel Gensur from Cleveland, OH in Dallas in 1940. After WW II, he joined United Airlines as a co-pilot. Then, he went to National Airlines as the youngest commercial Captain in the US. When National's pilots went on strike over wage demands, he returned to Dallas and went to work for his father, H.M. Cree, Sr. as a Manufacturers' Representative for automotive parts, along with his brother, Bert. When their father died in 1957, Dick and Bert took over the business, growing the operation from two sales people to nine and changing the company name to Cree and Cree, Inc., with Dick serving as President. The company is still in operation today.

After Ethel's death from cancer, Dick was introduced to Mary Anne Williams, a single mother raising a family of five: four boys and a girl. A perfect match for Dick's family of four boys and a girl. They were married January 12, 1968 and the family of eight (Dick's two older sons were already on their own) took up residence in Greenway Parks. Thus began the union that has lasted more than 47 years. Together, they have raised two families, welcomed sons- and daughters-in-law into the fold, spoiled 20 grandkids and doted on four great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his mother, Mabel Wilson Cree; his father, H. M. Cree, Sr.; his wife, Ethel Gensur Cree; his brother, H. M. Cree, Jr.; and his granddaughter, Katie Rose Williams.

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