Richard Bainbridge Obituary, Death – In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Richard E. Bainbridge, age 86, of Hendersonville, North Carolina, and formerly of Fallston, Maryland, passed away at the Life Care Center in Hendersonville. Mr. Bainbridge joined the Marine Corps Band as a drummer in the same year that he graduated from Elizabethtown High School in Pennsylvania in the class of 1951. He had attended that school. Since he is a Marine and his primary duty is to protect the nation, he was sent to Korea as a member of the fighting force there.
The Korean Service Medal, the United Nations Service Medal, the Korean Presidential Unit Citation, the Good Conduct Medal, and the National Defense Service Medal were all presented to him while he was still serving in the military during the war. In 1954, he was given the rank of Sergeant, and in August of that same year, he was honorably discharged from the military.
Mr. Bainbridge began his career in retail as a salesman for a local haberdashery in Elizabethtown after the war. It was during this time that he met Edith Helen Gebhard, who would later become his first wife. They tied the knot in August of 1958, and they were happily married for 47 years before she passed away in 2005. Mr. Bainbridge enjoyed a prosperous career with Montgomery Ward up until the year 1980, when he took his retirement as a Merchandising and Operations Executive for the regional branch located in Baltimore, Maryland.
Winifred N. Bainbridge, his second wife of almost nine years, his sister-in-law Ruth E. Gebhard of North Carolina, his eldest daughter Lauri E. Bainbridge and her partner Kirk A. Hawk of West Virginia, his youngest daughter Jan Marie Pullin and his son-in-law Rick Pullin of Virginia, his four granddaughters Lauren Pullin, Elizabeth Dohony, Rebecca Pullin, and Bridget Dohony, his sister Betty Jean Wolynetz, and a
On Saturday, there will be a funeral service followed by interment at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Family Memorial Gardens in Mills River, North Carolina. The service will include military honors, and it will be followed by a gathering of family and friends at the church.