John "Dick" Richard Lechman

Dick, who conservatively had hundreds of friends in the Denver area, especially the 10:30 Catholic Community, also in Lafayette and Longmont areas, was a former Catholic priest, a salesman, a bookstore owner, poet, fisherman, musical connoisseur, basketball, softball and pickleball player and friend to all in need or not.

Most of all, whether writing poetry, meditating, reading, selling books, telling jokes, managing his softball team, entertaining friends, playing sports or helping people, his love for humor and zest for life were unparalleled.

Born November 20, 1937 in Big Springs, Nebraska, Dick was the son of John Conrad Lechman and Monica Schlitter Lechman. He was the 13th of 14 children and inherited his mother’s love for fun, music, dance and religion. He worked on the farm from 1942 to 1955.

Dick attended St. Anthony’s Grade School and High School in Sterling, Colorado from 1949 - 1955. He then entered St. Thomas Seminary in Denver and was ordained a priest in 1963. He left the priesthood in 1970 and married in 1972 and has an adopted son, Thomas MacKenzie of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Dick was a psychologist and bus driver and sold plumbing parts until opening Grandfather Books in Arvada in the late 1980s.

Dick wrote thousands of poems and did his own versions of the psalms. When the Colorado Rockies got a franchise in 1991, Dick became an instant baseball fan. Besides all of his passions, the true love of his life was his wife, Mary Jeanne McFerren, author and columnist, whom he married in 2009.

Dick is survived by his wife, Mary Jeanne, son, Thom MacKenzie and his wife, Kira, stepdaughter Lily Ribeiro, two grandchildren, Noah and Bianca; his sister Ann in Seattle, Washington who is 93, and brother Don, 82, in Torrance, California, as well as dozens of nephews and nieces, grandnephews and grandnieces, and hundreds of cousins, who will all miss him dearly.

A Requiem Mass was said in his honor at January 26th, 2023 at St. Francis Assisi Church, 3791 Pike Road, Longmont. Burial will be at Crown Hill Cemetery in Lakewood.