Richard W. Ham ’52 died on November 18, 2025, in North Reading, Massachusetts.

(The following was provided by Croswell Funeral Home in November 20, 2025:)

Richard W. Ham ’52

Richard Webster Ham – 95, of North Reading, MA, husband of the late Joleen Glidden, passed away on Tuesday, November 18, 2025, at his home in North Reading, MA.

Dick was born in Winchester, Massachusetts on June 8, 1930, to Robert and Priscilla (Webster) Ham. He graduated from Reading High School in 1948. In 1952 he became a very proud graduate of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. He frequently reminisced about his Bowdoin friends, fraternity brothers, and faculty and enjoyed visiting the campus to see how it had changed over the years.

Dick taught foreign language at Reading Memorial High School for nearly forty years, and continued as a substitute teacher for many years following his “retirement” in the early 1990s. He is still fondly remembered by many of his former students. Dick was a long-time member of the Union Congregational Church in North Reading and was part of the church choir, House Committee and the Care Committee at various times. He always looked forward to the annual Christmas fair, and treating his eldest daughter to a lobster roll, a tradition begun by his late wife, Joleen.

Dick loved spending his summers at Chewonki Campground in Wiscasset, ME, where he and his family camped for over fifty years. Other campers and the owners looked forward to seeing Dick every year, and vice versa.

Dick was much loved and will be sorely missed by his children, Deborah Ham of Peabody, MA; David W. Ham of Merrimack, NH; and Elizabeth V. “Betsey” Driscoll and her husband, Raymond, of Dracut, MA. He is also survived by four grandchildren, four great-grandsons, his brother, David F. Ham, and his wife, Barbara, of North Reading, and several nieces and nephews.