PORTLAND – Richard “Dick” Dreselly, born near Boston to John and Stella (Bailey) Dreselly, died suddenly of a stroke, March 17, 2025, two months after his 100th birthday.

He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Margery, a retired Togus Hospital RN; daughter Carol (Steve Thomas); grandsons Michael (Kristen), Nicholas (Jessica) all in Colorado; and Matthew (Liz) in Atlanta; five young great-grandchildren; stepson Philip Pierce and family.

His sister Barbara Thims, half-brother Peter, and a nephew died earlier; two nieces, two nephews, and their families also survive him.

He was 1943 valedictorian at Falmouth High School, and a 1948 graduate in civil engineering from MIT. He worked during and after high school in the Portland shipyards as a shipfitter; trained during MIT with the Naval officer training program. An extensive solo bicycle trip at age 16 (after the early death of his mother from rheumatic fever) through New England after reading about the new American Youth Hostel movement, led to marrying at age 19, the AYH founders’ daughter, Betty Smith, the birth of Carol in 1948, but divorce in 1952.

A lifelong passion for the out-of-doors, adventure, and travel led to working at sea, and in Luxembourg, Greenland, Cuba, Vietnam and Maine.

In 1957 he was the 17th person to solo sail a 40-foot sloop he bought in Holland and learned to sail before crossing the Atlantic from Gibraltar to Florida.

In 1968 he married Margery (Sprague) Pierce, who shared his love of hiking and travel. They drove all 50 US states, all Canadian provinces, much of Mexico, and down to Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, but via ship around the dangerous Darien Gap. Norway was his favorite. They did trail maintenance for decades with the Maine Appalachian Trail club, they canoed, and flew their 170A Cessna to many states including Alaska in 2000. He hiked the whole Appalachian Trail from Georgia with Marge‘s slack-packing support. He climbed Mount Washington at age 90 with a Boston Globe photographer and writer with him, featured on their front page. He was proud of building trails, of his work with the Maine A.T. club, of his memberships with NAACP, and with Mensa, and his MIT degree.

His body has been donated to the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Please send memories of Dick or condolences to the family to dreselly.obit@gmail.com.