I was very sad to hear of Dick's death. Going back three decades, we shared a few conversations at Edgar Awards dinners and (IIRC) at least one Bouchercon...perhaps Milwaukee in 1981. He was a great guy and wrote some fine stories for the mystery digests. I had no idea that some had been collected but will seek them out now.
We corresponded for a time but not in many years. I had hoped to see him turn up at the PWA awards dinner in Indianapolis last month as I recalled he lived in Indianapolis and he had a short story nominated. Now I know illness prevented that. Would have been nice if he had won but that wasn't to be.
Richard Moore
--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Todd Mason" <foxbrick@...> wrote:
>
> http://www.thestarpress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009911100330
>
> Veteran Muncie newsman dies at 84
>
> By JOHN CARLSON � jcarlson@ � November 10, 2009
>
> MUNCIE -- Dick Stodghill died Sunday night.
>
> That probably shouldn't be so surprising. After all, the former Muncie
> Evening Press reporter and columnist was 84 years old and facing a
> slew of health issues including edema, the cumulative effects of an
> old bout with heart failure, plus a longtime brain tumor, one that his
> doctors thought had begun growing and blamed for seizures he had
> suffered of late.
>
> "He couldn't fight them all at one time," his wife of 33 years,
> Jackie, said Monday in a call from their Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio home.
>
> But for those of us who respected, admired and even loved him, somehow
> it comes as a shock.
>
> Stodghill, who enjoyed a stiff drink and craved a good pipe, was a
> tough guy, a man who didn't suffer fools or bigots gladly.
>
> "He had integrity without bounds," Jackie said.
>
> The consummate writer, he had covered the courts here for years with a
> sterling mix of skill and style, the same qualities he then employed
> as an award-winning columnist, including a long stretch when he penned
> five newspaper columns a week, year in and year out, until 1990.
>
> Even as he aged and his health failed, he embraced blogging as another
> outlet for his tireless drive to write.
>
> "He had a fabulous memory," Jackie recalled, discussing the stories
> that flowed from his word processor. "He could have a blog about a
> clump of dirt and make it interesting."
>
> Stodghill wrote far more than all that, though. A former Pinkerton
> Detective Agency operative himself, he was a longtime fan of classic
> mystery writers, whose attributes he could discuss at length, and
> during an earlier, temporary retirement from his newspaper work, tried
> his hand at it with amazing results.
>
> A fan of short stories, his soon began to appear regularly in top
> mystery publications, most notably Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery
> Magazine. Even after his eventual return to newspaper work, he was a
> regular contributor, his stories frequently culled for hard-cover
> collections published by groups like Mystery Writers of America and
> Private Eye Writers of America.
>
> Indeed, during last month's Bouchercon World Mystery Convention in
> Indianapolis, his story Panic on Portage Path was a nominee for a 2009
> Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America.
>
>
> Chances are pretty good he was the only octogenarian nominee.
>
> "He never changed," Jackie said. "Dick was Dick."
>
> Stodghill collected many of his magazine stories in books like Case
> Files of Jack Eddy, Midland Murders and Rough Old Stuff, the last of
> which featured ones published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine.
>
> Other books he published were outside the mystery genre. There was the
> story of a famous old band, The Hoosier Hot Shots, the story of a
> relative's march through turbulent times, From Devout Catholic to
> Communist Agitator, and a comprehensive history of Central High
> School's Bearcat basketball teams that he and Jackie logged countless
> hours and miles researching.
>
> And then there was Normandy 1944: A Young Rifleman's War.
>
> If you knew Stodghill, you knew the sight of the unique ring he wore
> featuring a small version of the Army's Combat Infantryman Badge. He
> was 17 when he enlisted in 1943, then fought his way across Western
> Europe with the 4th Infantry Division.
>
> What he left behind in that book is a treasure.
>
> It's as fine a war memoir as you'll ever read, an uncompromising look
> back at the horrors encountered, and the courage exhibited, by his own
> Band of Brothers, a television series which he thought did a good job
> of portraying the realities they shared.
>
> To read Stodghill's book, to know exactly what he and his buddies who
> made it through the war survived, tells you why he was still wearing
> that special ring when the end came, and why never, for a single day
> in the intervening years, did those memories leave his mind.
>
> That may explain why he insisted there be no funeral service, nor a
> standard obituary, to mark his death.
>
> The 65 years since that scared young American infantryman first set
> foot on French soil?
>
> For Stodghill, they were all a gift.
>
> (Courtesy Paul Di Filippo on the FictionMags list)
>
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