Celebrating the Life of Richard J. Reinhart

Rich was an athlete in his own right, playing on basketball courts all over the city, including once at the original Madison Square Garden, both for St. Ignatius High School and for pick-up matches wherever he and his friends could find a game.  He made the newspaper when he got bloodied in a physical game and wouldn’t come out of the game, playing until the final buzzer. It would serve as an example of the determination that was a hallmark of his entire life.

He would go on to Fordham University in the Bronx, studying and taking classes at night, while he was working full-time during the day at a branch of First National City Bank. He would receive his bachelor’s degree in business in 1952. After graduation, Rich was invited by the bank to tour the U.S. by car to better get to know his customers. This trip was life transforming and probably inspired Rich and Marilyn’s many family adventures, camping and traveling through most states in the U.S. Even more life transforming was that while working at the bank, he met a smart, pretty, young, colleague named Marilyn Kavanagh. A mutual acquaintance would insist the two were made for each other. Sure enough, he asked Marilyn to marry him at a Yankees game, and she kept the tickets to that game for the rest of her life.

On June 20, 1953, Rich and Marilyn became husband and wife. The couple would first live in the Jackson Heights section of Queens, where Rich found he had a growing talent for working in retail store development. He would go on to work at W.F. Grant, Co., Walgreen’s and Grand Union Supermarkets, helping to determine where new locations would be built and negotiating the deal for the real estate they would sit on. He eventually would find long-term success doing that kind of work for a growing drugstore chain known originally by its full name, Consumer Value Stores, later shortened to the initials CVS, where he worked for 15 years until his retirement in 1991.

Along the way, Marilyn and he grew their family, first in Queens with arrival of daughter Peg, who would be joined by daughter Denyse three years later. The family would initially move to Illinois for Rich’s career where their only son Richard, would then be born and then a third daughter, Mary would arrive to round out the couple’s four children. They would return to the East Coast as a family of six, eventually settling in their long-time hometown of Park Ridge, New Jersey for some 25 years.

When the four children struck out on their own life journeys, the empty nesters retired to their favorite vacation spot of the many places they had traveled over the years, Hilton Head Island on the coast of South Carolina. They built their dream home and hosted their children who by then had started families of their own, and loved their golden years together until cancer took Marilyn much too soon in 2001.

Rich turned again to his Catholic faith which had been a constant through his entire life, and it was at St. Francis by the Sea church where he met Helen Deguire, also widowed. The two struck up a friendship which would blossom into a romance that led them to be wed in 2004. They would bring their two families together and loved all their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Eventually they would move to Green Cove Springs, Florida, to be near family members in that state.

Richard John Reinhart is survived by his wife Helen Reinhart and her children, Helen E. Gilbert (Rick), William C. Kennedy (Kym), Annette Robin Kennedy, Deborah J. LaPier, and Karen Redcross (Dean). He is also survived by his four children including Margaret Frances (Peg) Reinhart and her partner, Robert Gates, of St. Augustine, Florida, Denyse Reinhart and her husband, Kirk Varner, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Richard Gerard Reinhart and his wife, Jeannie, of Green Cove Springs, Florida and Mary Reinhart-Tse, and her husband, Anthony, of Potomac, Maryland. Rich is also survived by many loving grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews and cousins. He was predeceased by his brothers Woody and Jack, and his sisters, Margaret-Mary and Clare. He is deeply missed by his entire family.

Memorial services will be held in Fleming Island, Florida, at Sacred Heart Catholic Church at 11 a.m. ET, on October 2, 2021. Interment will be held at a future date in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. In lieu of flowers, please donate to a charity of your choice.

Please join us as we celebrate Richard’s life and constant, unconditional love.

Mass 11:00 A.M.
Saturday, October 2, 2021
Sacred Heart Catholic Church
7190 US-17
Fleming Island, FL 32003

Reception 12:30 – 3:00 P.M.
Location TBD


The family requests that all guests wear masks.

For planning purposes, we ask that you please RSVP as soon as possible.
Click here to RSVP via Facebook.
Or send an email to: reinhartfamily2021@reinhartfamily

More photos.