08/18/2025
Richard Lloyd Lindner
Dick Lindner [Richard Lloyd Lindner] brought a loving heart to the world.
Born to Mary Elnor Meyer and Albert Erich Lindner in 1936 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Mary, only 19 when she gave birth to her first-born, adored Dick. Albert was never a part of Dick's life.
Mary raised Dick in her hometown of Indianapolis, and soon married Edward Lyle Lamond, Dick's true dad. They had five other children: Sue (Webb), Judy (Lett), Larry (Lamond), John (Lamond) and Steve (Lamond). All but Sue survive Dick now. He was baptized in the Roman Catholic church and attended Saint Philip Neri School, followed by Cathedral High School. He also attended Indiana University-Purdue University - Indianapolis branch.
Dick was a hard worker, setting a standard for everyone in his family. His first job was at 8 years old as a drugstore soda-jerk with many other jobs to follow before he even hit puberty.
He grew up with a close group of teenage friends in Indianapolis but was eager to get into the real world and make himself independent, earn money, and most importantly, buy a car. Dick loved cars. His first car was a 1936 Buick with side mounts, soon replaced by a 1956 Oldsmobile Super 88 convertible bought brand new off the showroom floor when he was 18 years old. Dick would chronicle his life by the cars he owned.
One of the highlights of Dick's car-crazed life was being chosen as a leader of the Toastmasters in Indianapolis to es**rt the Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year around on the speaking circuit, which led him to know a number of Indy car drivers.
Edward (Ed), Dick's dad, brought Dick, as a 16-year-old, into his world of meatpacking plants. This job at Stark & Wetzel, saw Dick quickly work his way up from the lowest level job on the slaughterhouse floor to a management position in the offices above. This was a big leap for a boy who grew up in one of the poorest parts of Indianapolis. He was loyal, and forever grateful, to his mentors over the years who helped him progress along the way.
Dick always set the highest standards for himself - he was a man who always wanted to be the best and didn't take the easy path. This led him to join the U.S. Marine Corps at 21. He tested into the officer candidacy school, but within months had a serious shoulder separation, part of a lingering congenital shoulder problem, and that was quickly the end of his promising military career. He remained all of his life immensely proud of the Marines, and of having been, if only briefly, one himself.
In the end, maybe the turn of events with the Marines was a good thing, as Dick had only married Judy Leslie a mere six months before. Judy and Dick met on a blind date. As Judy remembers, she "fell in love with Dick the first time I saw him." Their marriage in 1957 lasted for nearly 68 years, flourished by youthful ardor, formed by shared experience, tested by adversity, matured by wisdom and faith, and deepened by an abiding love, and respect, for each other.
Dick and Judy set about creating a great life for themselves. New marriage, new car, new house, new furniture, new baby.
Judy and Dick raised four children: Caroline Frances, Ronna Leigh, Leslie Rochelle (Shelly) and Richard Lyle.
In 1965 things really began to change for Dick and Judy. Dick was increasingly being promoted and guided into senior management level meat industry jobs outside Indianapolis, resulting in a move to Canton, Ohio in 1965, and the place Dick most loved living, Miami Florida in 1966, where he took on a complex job of designing, supervising the construction of, and running, a new meat processing and snack plant.
Dick rode some wild waves of jobs in Miami, while loving the lifestyle of having a home with a built-in pool in the backyard, a Catholic school where his kids could thrive, occasional forays to watch the Miami Dolphins in person, and a blender that made the best frozen lime daiquiris suitable for the sub-tropical climate. It would have been idyllic if he didn't have to work two jobs to support his growing family. He moved from the meat industry to the high-risk-high-reward commodities trading business and worked nights and weekends managing a bowling alley. His dedication to his family is awe-inspiring to look back on now.
Ultimately, mentors guided Dick back to the meat and snack industry, causing the family to move to Lima, Ohio, where Dick took a senior management job with the nation's biggest producer of pork rinds, Rudolph Foods, a unit of food behemoth Beatrice Foods. It was here that Dick really put to work his technical knowledge, strong mathematical skills and inventive mind, refining a patent his employer held, and becoming the world's foremost expert on "liquid smoke", the process for applying it to food products with 98% of carcinogens in conventional smoke removed, and the design of meatpacking plants to accommodate this industry-changing technology.
Rudolph sold the patent to a Tennessee company and Hickory Specialties was born, causing Dick and the family to move to Nashville. From this point on Dick travelled the world as the leading expert on this technology. He travelled to most countries in the world, some several times over, causing him to be a first-hand witness to a number of global historical events, such as the Israel/Egypt Peace Accords and arriving in East Germany immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
While working for Hickory Specialties in Brentwood, Dick devised three processes and refinements to liquid smoke application, one of which eliminated the virulent and deadly listeria bacteria --earning three U.S and global patents on his inventions. Dick's family grew up with a blessed lifestyle living in Brentwood and Franklin during those years, with many weekends spent water-skiing on Percy Priest Lake.
Eventually life slowed down as he retired in 2002 , saying he never wanted to get on a plane again. This gave him time for some of the sports he was good at (though he was good at any sport he played) including, golf, bowling (he once bowled a near-perfect 287 out of 300 game) and racquetball. He could also devote much of life to doing what he loves most - watching on TV every sport known to man under the sun, including the really slow-moving ones like golf and bowling. Most of all he loved watching NFL games, eventually trading his loyalties to the Miami Dolphins for loyalty to the Tennessee Titans. Dick even lured Judy into fandom of the Nashville Predators — an astounding conversion considering how little Judy cared for sports.
And, retirement meant more time for his lifelong love of music of all kinds, but especially jazz, and more especially, big, bold, noisy jazz like Earl Bostic, who he listened to during his waning days of amazing care at the Alive Hospice in Murfreesboro. The family is deeply grateful to the staff there and at TriStar Spring Hill ER in Spring Hill and at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville who gave loving and conscientious care to Dick in his final days.
As Dick's work life slowed down his kids married: Shelly to Eric Hadley, and later Tim Sassen; Ronna to Chris Davis; Richard to Lori Brudvik; and Caroline to Chuck Harter; all of whom survive Dick, except Chris. This resulted in grandkids galore: Alexander Hadley, born first, followed by Griffin Davis, Lark Brudvik-Lindner, Nicholas Hadley, Luke Davis, and Wren Brudvik-Lindner, all of whom are surviving.
After indulging Dick's passion for designing and supervising the building of two custom-built homes in Franklin and selling them, Dick and Judy moved to Spring Hill for retirement, loving their neighbors and neighborhood there. This also meant the hard decision to leave St Philip Church in Franklin and all their friends who they love so much in this parish, having seen St Philip grow from a tiny church in 1975 to the vibrant and large faith community it is today, and becoming parishioners of the Church of the Nativity in Spring Hill.
Dick fell down the stairs just weeks ago and succumbed to the ensuing injuries on August 3rd, 2025, just 10 days short of his 89th birthday. This has left Judy, wife for nearly 7 decades, deeply saddened but grateful for the incredibly rich and blessed life they have lived together. Judy and all her children and grandchildren invite you to celebrate Dick's life:
August 22, Friday
St Philip Church
113 2nd Ave South
Franklin, TN 37064
10am - Visitation
11am - Funeral Mass
Noon - Reception/lunch
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