Robert Paul Rich

Robert Paul Rich, on May 7, 2020, in the Golden Hill home in Indianapolis that he long delighted in, passed on quietly to what comes next. He was with us for 93 years.

Born September 9, 1926 in Indianapolis to John Paul and Helen Jeanette Constance Rich, he graduated from Shortridge High School. He went on to study business and engineering at Texas A&M, Purdue University, and graduated from Butler University. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in January 1945, just weeks after his beloved older brother Wally (John Wallace Rich) was killed in Belgium fighting as an infantryman during the earliest hours of the Battle of the Bulge.

After partnering with O. A. Tucker in 1949, he established Rich’s Furniture in downtown Indianapolis, and later established Rich’s Home Furnishings of Carmel. His gregarious salesmanship and taste for fine furniture earned him many loyal customers and a lifelong vocation. In 1952, after a fair amount of wooing (salesmanship?), Robert and Shirley Lee Renick were married. She brought her design skills to the business while raising their two sons.

Once compelled to finally stop working seven days a week after 60-some-odd years, he often spent his time with a large cat or a small dog on his lap, or standing stoveside, skillet in one hand and favorite spatula in the other, eagerly asking “Who wants another egg?” He was generous and inscrutable and skillful and ungovernable ~ and loved and now missed very much.

Robert leaves behind his wife of 68 years, Shirley, their two sons Christopher Paul and Randal Alan, granddaughter Kelsey, great-grandson Peyton Wesley, and their precious dog Jack. The family would like to thank caregivers Sandy Butler, Monica Masters and Carrie Harris for their remarkable devotion to the comfort and contentment of the household