LEEDS – Richard A. Pease, 85, a resident of Leeds Junction Road, Leeds, died early Sunday, Feb. 18, at his home, after a long illness.

He was born April 15, 1921, in Leeds, the son of Alton Loring and Erna Mae (Richardson) Pease. He attended school in Leeds and Monmouth Academy. On Sept. 22, 1944, in Fort Smith, Ark., he married Clara Lewis of Newcastle. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II in the European Theater.

He worked for Bonifide Mills in Winthrop, he was also a self-employed chicken farmer and owner and president of Pease & Buckley Inc. of Leeds. He was a member of the American Legion. He was a very avid train enthusiast and he also enjoyed flying in small airplanes, and flew around Mt. Washington one day when his family was on top of the mountain, (without them knowing). He always loved a good game of checkers with his grandson, Brandon.

He is survived by his wife, Clara; a son, Philip Pease, and his wife, Lynn; three daughters, Kathryn Cummings, and her husband, Charles, Barbara Burnham, and her husband, Robert and Pamela Buckley, and her husband, Hugh, all of Leeds; six grandchildren; seven great-grandchildren; two brothers, Loring S. Pease of Dundee, Ill. and David Pease, and his wife, Vickie, of Sunnyvale, Texas; two sisters, Shirley F. Smith, and her husband, Eugene of Leeds and Virginia Krickler of Leeds; and his dialysis family since March 2, 2003.