Passage of Time Dick & Lolli Sumberg '64

REFLECTING ON THE PASSAGE OF TIME

Richard “Dick” Sumberg ’64 and Lolli Sumberg

“You know how it is: you’re twenty-one or twenty-two and you make some decisions; then whisssh! you’re seventy: you’ve been a lawyer for fifty years, and that white-haired lady at your side has eaten over fifty thousand meals with you” (Our Town, Thornton Wilder, 1938). Fifty-eight years ago, Dick Sumberg ’64, in his role as Stage Manager in Malden Catholic’s production of Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, memorized and spoke those lines. You can read all about it in the March 2, 1964, edition of the MC newspaper, Hi-Lite. The paper’s first edition earlier that school year, published November 22, 1963, references Dick at least five or six times – as the Hi-Lite Business Manager, as vice-president of Senior Homeroom 102, as a member of the National Honor Society, as a varsity runner for Brother Bede and Brother Constant (Myles McManus), and as a varsity debater, where he is photographed with five teammates and moderator Brother Brice. Dick argued for the negative position that year on the topic: “Resolved: That Social Security Benefits should be extended to include complete medical care.”

Our Town explores the cycle of life and conjures up the fascination of reflecting on the passage of time in one’s life, and how one thing leads to another in sometimes whimsical, often unexpected ways. Looking back, Dick can be well-pleased that his journey has taken many fortuitous turns -- with fifty-two years of devoted marriage to wife Lolli; with two loving, successful children, Katy and Alex; with two grandchildren; and with a very successful career in financial planning and investment management. Malden Catholic can be well-pleased, too, that Dick has been most loyal and generous in his kindnesses to MC over many years!

Born in Detroit in 1946, and now living in Andover, Dick moved in fifth grade to St. Agnes Parish in Reading, MA. When it was time for high school, and the entrance exam date for MC coincided with that of another local Catholic high, Dick’s father made the decision easy. “Take the MC test,” he said. Done! So, was Dick always the “big man on campus” that we see in the 1963-64 editions of Hi-Lite? Well… no! Dick relates with a chuckle: “I went out for the basketball team in my freshman year. After about 20 minutes into the first tryout, the coach came over and put his arm around my shoulders, and said, ‘Son, I have one word for you.’ I said, ‘Coach, is it VARSITY?’ He said, ‘No… it’s TRACK’”! And that was the start of a fulfilling four-year cross-country and track career, mentored by Coach Brother Bede, whom Dick recalls as his favorite (albeit quirky) teacher of math and physics. Dick appreciates how Brother Bede was always fully committed to his students and athletes. November 22, 1963, was more than just the publication date of Hi-Lite. It marked the tragic assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Dick, though, additionally remembers it as the day of his first business setback. He was part of a group of classmates who had taken it upon themselves to improve school spirit, and they decided to do it by selling blue knit hats with “GO MC” emblazoned on the front. Sales were to be at the Friday afternoon football rally before Saturday’s big game. The group went ahead with the minimum 100-piece order through a company right in Malden. Dick relates, “For a reason, I don’t recall, it was my responsibility to pick up the hats the day before the rally. I picked them up and paid for them with my cash savings. I have no memory as to how or why I ended up making the entire investment. They looked great and were ready for sale at the football rally on Friday afternoon. I suspect that because I was the financier of this project, I was the one to pitch the hats on the stage at the rally behind the school building.” The rally convened, and when it was time for Dick, standing on stage, to sell the hats, “Brother Bede, C.F.X., leaned out the school window next to the speaking platform and announced that Kennedy had been shot. He had not yet been pronounced dead. The crowd was stunned, silence

reigned, and all were instructed to go home. I was left standing on the stage, the proud owner of 100 GO MC blue knit hats which could now be worthless. I stowed the box of merchandise in the building and hitchhiked home.” Dick still recalls vividly the bizarre feel of that weekend, the profound loss, the capture of Lee Harvey Oswald, and his murder in plain sight on Saturday TV by Jack Ruby. “Every event in the country was canceled for the weekend. We all stayed home and tried to imagine what was going on and what would happen next. On Monday morning, work and school resumed, and life tried to revert to normal.” Dick’s financial loss, happily, was not long standing: he was able to sell the hats at the next few rallies! MC produced many great debaters in the ’60s and ’70s. Dick was one of them! “I was on the Debate Team for 4 years. I really enjoyed visiting the local Catholic high schools for debates. I made a number of friends on the other teams. When I joined the BC Debate Team, several of them were my teammates and debating partners. We are still in touch today. MC debate was very valuable to me when I did a lot of public speaking later in my career.” Also valuable was the assistance of Principal Brother Joseph Smithers, who guided Dick and 24 classmates toward matriculation at Boston College, where Dick graduated in 1968 with a degree in economics and history. An MBA at Suffolk University followed in 1974. By 1992, following 16 years working in his father’s industrial-supply distribution company, where he learned sales and management skills, Dick had transitioned briefly into insurance and investment and then founded The Financial Advisors LLC in Andover. Over 30 years he grew a highly successful financial planning and investment management practice, which he recently exited by selling to the employees he had hired and trained. Dick notes with quiet pride, “When I left at the end of 2021, we served 800 families in two offices and managed just shy of $1 billion. I found it very rewarding to be with families when they made the decisions that impacted their financial lives.” Along this journey, Dick nurtured his own family, explored the excitement of far-flung world travel and adventurous hobbies, and developed outlets for expressions of care, civic engagement and philanthropic support, Malden Catholic among them. A blind date with Lolli Connerton at the 1967 Newport Folk Festival led to the love of his life. Dick recalls, “I went down to Newport, Lolli’s home, to surf with my BC debating partner. He met a girl, and I met Lolli. We are both married to those women today.” Dick has enjoyed 25 snowcat backcountry ski trips to British Columbia with his son Alex, and they have charted sailboats around the world. Dick’s interest in woodworking manifests itself not only in the shop in his basement, where he likes to craft furniture but also in the small sailboat he built with his grandson. They sail it from the beach in Newport. Dick has been steadily active on various Boards over the years, and Malden Catholic was blessed with his service and counsel for three terms totaling nine years. He is a longtime member of our St. Francis Xavier Society and an early subscriber to our Legacy Giving. Dick appreciates the investment of a Malden Catholic education and encourages others toward that understanding too: at MC, “I learned how to get along with a much wider range of people than I was exposed to before MC. If a student works hard and takes advantage of what the school has to offer, he or she will get a good education and a strong start in life.”

Inspired by the great educational environment he sees at MC, and the synergy between faculty, staff and students, Dick reminds us, “I have yet to see a family that experienced financial ruin because of the cost of educating their kids. I have seen families that struggle because their members did not get a good education. Investing in education is always a winner.” In touting the value of estate planning, Dick shares, “If you are a donor to charitable organizations during your lifetime, the gifts stop at your death. A gift to an organization’s endowment continues your annual support to the organization forever. When you move to ‘the other side of the grass,’ you have one last opportunity to impact the world you are leaving, and you only get that opportunity once…don’t miss it.” No wiser words were spoken by Thornton Wilder’s Stage Manager, reviewing the lives of simple souls at Grover’s Corners, NH, where his wisdom was that all too often, we miss the beauty of the life we have, that we miss the extraordinary in the ordinary, that we fail to appreciate what we have before it is too late. How wonderful that Dick and Lolli have made it their quest to do otherwise! We thank them for this goodness.

“I learned how to get along with a much wider range of people than I was exposed to before MC. If a student works hard and takes advantage of what the school has to offer, he or she will get a good education and a strong start in life.”

- DICK SUMBERG '64