Richard Picard

Richard Picard

January 23, 1933 – October 18, 2020

We have lost our North Star.

Richard Albert (Dick) Picard left us in the wee, dark hours of the morning on October 18, 2020 after a very brief but intense struggle with cancer. He was 87.

Born in 1933, in Winnipeg, to Katherine and Albert Picard, he was the eldest of three children and a true child of the Depression. His father died when he was seven, and he was left to learn how to work hard to help his widowed mom support the family. Even at such a young age he found jobs delivering papers, mowing lawns, shoveling snow, and looking after his younger siblings once his mother returned to work as a teacher. And such it was for the rest of his life.

Dad loved to boat, to fish, to golf and to drive. His childhood of poverty made him the embodiment of Santa Claus in his adult years… no season, no holiday delighted him so much as to be able to decorate the yard or the house and gift to excess to create excitement and joy among the children.

Dick married Joy Earle in 1954 and they had four children: Nancy, Carol (Robin), Rick (Denise) and Rob (Linda). From those twigs emerged nine grandchildren: Lori (David), Gilles (Shaileen), Michelle, Christine (Duwayne), Ricky (Ashlee),Brittani (Trent), Kimberley (Casey), Samantha and Joshua (Rhema), and from those nine have emerged the next generation: Walker, Mikaya, Hudson, Ella, Matthew, Milana, Lily, Ryan, Ava and Delilah.

Dick is also survived by his two siblings, Joan Bleidorn of Milwaukee and Lorne Picard of Vancouver.

After Joy’s death in 2013, 59 years together, Dick married Maureen Anderson in 2018, who brought him such incredible joy in his last few years that the entire family rejoiced in their love.

Dick left formal education at an early age because jobs were plentiful in the post-War era, but he embodied the concept of the lifelong learner. He read voraciously, followed news and current events avidly and was both self-taught and formally taught in so many ways. Dick was a natural born sales man and strived to constantly better himself and looked for a variety of opportunities. He learned to fly and purchased a series of small fixed-wing planes, sometimes dropping in for lunch to a daughter in another city or flying to visit his siblings to take in the Oshkosh or Abbotsford air shows. For a few years in the early 1990s he was the national president of the Canadian Aviation Search and Rescue Association (CASARA) and successfully organized an air show in Saskatoon at which the Snowbirds were highlighted. He also served as councillor on the RM of Corman Park for many years in the 1990s.

He was a self-taught auto mechanic and nothing pleased him more than finding a fixer-upper he could then turn over to one of the kids or grandkids to provide cheap, reliable wheels. He built a beautiful home in La Ronge, Sask. on the lakefront where he and Joy enjoyed 35 years of first holidays and then permanent residency.

In his adult career he was primarily known for his entrepreneurial and management skills with Liquid Carbonic out of Winnipeg and later his own business, Weldarc, in Saskatoon, to which he had transplanted most of his family in 1978 to rescue a failing business and make it his own.

Grandpa loved spending the holidays and summers with his grandchildren. He always made sure to have chocolate milk in the fridge and an assortment of candies readily available for sharing. Favorite times included the annual Easter egg hunts at the cabin, fishing off the dock for perch and boat for jacks, when the weather allowed taking us to “Lori’s Beach” and spending his summers sharing his love of the outdoors with us.

A service will not be held at this time due to COVID restrictions, but a virtual memorial slideshow can be found below. Arrangements have been made through Dalmeny Funeral Home 306-254-2022, www.dalmenyfuneralhome.ca.