From the time I was old enough to recognize the people around me, there was one person who was my favorite. He held a place of love and admiration throughout my life that made every opportunity for me to be near him a delight. He was my Uncle Dick Lambert. In this photo I was three and it’s easy to see what I thought of him. My middle name is Richard. When I was young my nickname in the family was Dale Dickey. I was proud of it.
I vividly recall Uncle Dick’s black 1949 Ford Sedan. One night he was getting ready to return to Eastern Nazarene College in Boston, and I wanted to go with him. I ran out to his car and jumped in the back seat. When someone finally came and took me back inside, Uncle Dick said, “You’re not going to E.N.C., you’re going to B.E.D.”
We lived in Detroit, Michigan until I was seven years old. In the summer of 1960 before our family moved to Saginaw, I was the ring bearer in Uncle Dick and Aunt Norma’s wedding. I was always excited when they came to spend the weekend with us.
Uncle Dick was a teacher and a gifted artist. This oil painting was in our house as I was growing up, and is now in our own home. The little bit of creative and artistic ability I have comes from my Lambert family. Once I spent several hours in the basement with Uncle Dick drawing the gas meter hanging from the ceiling. I wish I still had my finished picture, it was pretty darn good for a sixth grader.
I wanted to do everything I could to be like Uncle Dick. I remember watching him brush his teeth and I was amazed at the amount of suds rolling over his hand. From then on, I was determined to do the same.
Uncle Dick was funny. I was sitting next to him at Grandma Lambert’s house one time, watching him draw random sketches. He wrote the word “crap” in the most perfect letters. I laughed because it was such a daring step into unacceptable behavior. We couldn’t say things like crap, or turd, or fart. We had to use approved words like “stinker.” Uncle Dick’s fart word was “fluff”, a perfect word that was so much funnier than stinker.
This is a charcoal drawing of the photo, “Italian Immigrants on Mulberry Street in New York City in the 1900’s”, my uncle completed on January 23, 1967. My mother, who adored my Uncle Dick as much as I did, passed away on the same date, twelve years later. This beautiful large drawing now hangs over the piano in our home. (I invite you to search for the photo on Google and you will discover just how accurate and amazing the drawing really is.)
One thing that my Uncle Dick and I shared together for many years was our love of HO scale model railroading. He loved watching trains as a young boy and that naturally led him to model railroading. In those days, scale ties and rails were laid by hand, there was no flex or sectional track available. His skills as an artist opened the door to incredible detail as he became a master in the hobby.
During spring break of 1970, I spent the week with Dick and Norma and their three children at their home in Detroit. Uncle Dick and I went to every hobby shop we could find. We discovered a great sale on HO trains at an E.J. Korvette department store. We bought railroad cars for a dollar, and a Rivarossi Baltimore & Ohio Dockside Switch Engine for three bucks! I couldn’t believe it!
We sat together at the dining room table and built the little cabin in the pictures above, from scratch. We cut windows and doors in cardboard and glued the walls together. We added a roof, then drew shingles and siding with a pen. Posts and steps made from balsa wood finished the project. The fifty-four-year-old cabin in the photo is now part of my Maple Valley Short Line Model Railroad.
Uncle Dick presented us with this beautiful water color farm scene for our wedding gift in 1973. Fifty-one years have caused it to yellow a bit, but the painting is still beautiful, and reminds us of him.
When our children were young, we had a tradition of meeting Dick and Norma in Holly, Michigan, the day after Thanksgiving for the Detroit Model Railroad Club Open House. The ladies went shopping in the local antique stores while Uncle Dick and I, with my three boys, spent an hour or two at the open house watching O scale model trains.
The Detroit Model Railroad Club has an amazing radio-controlled train layout operating on nearly six thousand feet of hand-laid track. It has been exciting to visit the club every year and watch progress being made as the layout continues to grow.
In the summer of 1985, my Grandma Lambert moved from the Detroit area to Escondido, California. Uncle Dick and I drove the truck containing all of her belongings on the four-day journey. The trip was long but we laughed a lot and had fun. The last night on the road we were in Mesquite, Nevada. We walked into the hotel room, and laughing hysterically I said, “I’m finally in a hotel room with mirrors on the ceiling and I’m with my uncle!”
Dick and Norma moved to Texas nearly twenty-five years ago. We were sad to see them go as it meant we might not see them for years at a time. Uncle Dick continued using his skills to create amazing model railroad structures and scratch-built airplanes. The airplanes were eventually donated to a local museum.
In the fall of 2020, we drove to Texas for a visit. We spent a few days together going to shops, eating, drinking lots of coffee, and reminiscing. Uncle Dick had a huge amount of model railroading items he collected and built over the years. When it was time for us to come home, I was given lots of things that became part of my own model railroad.
In the photos are a few of the structures my Uncle Dick scratch built. His attention to detail is evident in the brickwork he scribed by hand. Everything he built was masterful. He had a 4×8 foot layout in his garage covered with scratch-built structures, and each one was amazing.
Over the next couple of years, Uncle Dick’s health began to deteriorate quickly. It was eventually necessary for him to receive twenty-four hour care which was not possible at home. In the fall of 2023, we flew to Dallas to see Uncle Dick and Aunt Norma once again. We loved spending time with him.
I made a half-hour video of my Maple Valley Model Railroad to share with Uncle Dick. As we watched the video together, he was still teaching. He looked for detail, offered ideas, and gave me plenty of compliments. We talked about how much fun it is to scratch build, and he said, “Don’t you just love balsa?!” I said, “I sure do.”
We said our goodbyes through tears when it was time to leave. I couldn’t help thinking about a funny situation that happened nearly fifty years ago. Uncle Dick and I were driving my paternal grandmother back to her house after a visit, and for some reason Uncle Dick said, “Probably won’t see you again.” That became a standard comment we laughed about ever since. As I walked out of Uncle Dick’s room, I didn’t say it, but I knew we probably wouldn’t see him again. I was right.
As we were getting ready to fly home, my cousin encouraged me to take what I could from Uncle Dick’s collection. I chose a 2-8-4 Baldwin Class Berkshire locomotive, which is identical to one I had in high school, an 0-8-0 switcher steam locomotive, and a scratch-built “Stockton” box car. Stockton was my Uncle Dick’s middle name, and my Grandma Lambert’s maiden name. All three pieces are now rolling on my Maple Valley Short Line Model Railroad.
In May of this year, my Uncle Dick passed away. He was 86. Of all the things I cherish about Uncle Dick and Aunt Norma, what is foremost in my heart is how easy it was to be with them. Every time we were together, without fail, we always felt encouraged and supported.
Above all else, Uncle Dick’s faith in God was unshakeable. Through every challenge in 86 years, Uncle Dick was an amazing example of one who knew everything he ever accomplished was a result of his relationship with Jesus Christ.
My Uncle Dick was incredible. I was honored so many people told us we looked more like brothers than uncle and nephew. I will continue to benefit from the things he taught me for as long as I live.
A Coffee State of Mind 