Lewis James Riley's Obituary
Born in Combine, Texas on November 3, 1924 to parents James Wesley Riley and Clara Elizabeth Patterson Riley.Passed away in Dallas, Texas on November 13, 2009. Lewis graduated from Seagoville High School and was employed by Ford Motor Company in Dallas and New Jersey as management for 30 years. He is survived by his wife, Mary; daughter Carol and her husband Kurt; grandchildren: Caroline and Sumner; stepson, William Collum; son, James R. Riley; daughters, Cindy Riley and Vicki Grever and her husband Pete, and their son Gerald; sister, Carol Franks; and several other family members. Lewis James Riley: Ford worker, World War II combat veteran felt life was blessed By JOE SIMNACHER / The Dallas Morning News Lewis James Riley cheated death twice as a boy and several times as a World War II Marine in the South Pacific. He had a 30-year career as a Ford Motor Co. assembly-line manager and continued to work as a handyman until he was 83 years old. Mr. Riley, 85, died Friday of complications from pneumonia, emphysema and lung cancer at Autumn Leaves nursing home in Dallas. He died five hours after his request was fulfilled to be transferred from a Garland hospital to the nursing home to be with his wife, Mary Riley. A memorial service was Wednesday at Park Cities Baptist Church. He was buried in Restland Memorial Park. Mr. Riley, who was born in Combine, Texas, nearly died of pneumonia when he was 2 years old. When he was 11, his father, brother and sister died in a house fire that burned him and four other relatives. In January 1936, family members were cooking pork sausage made from hogs they had slaughtered earlier in the day. The deadly fire erupted when Mr. Riley’s father stoked the stove with kerosene. Mr. Riley’s pregnant mother grabbed her son and carried him safely out of the burning farmhouse, said his daughter Carol Robertson of Dallas. He and his mother were seriously burned in the accident. He graduated from Seagoville High School and joined the Marines, where he served with the 3rd Battalion, 10th Marines in combat at Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian and Okinawa. Mr. Riley survived intense combat situations. “He said the platoon leader would always say, ‘Riley, you grab some guys and go through those bushes,’ ” his daughter said. “He felt like his platoon leader only knew his name because he was always sending him out, but my dad always came back.” Mr. Riley was hospitalized for six weeks in a field hospital on Saipan after a bomb exploded and killed a Marine standing next to him, Mrs. Robertson said. The explosion took out one of Mr. Riley’s eardrums. On another occasion, he rescued a wounded Marine, whom he carried on his back through gunfire to safety. The Marine died. “The man’s parents called my dad to ask him about his last moments with their son, but at the time, he couldn’t talk about it,” Mrs. Robertson said, adding that it was one of her father’s biggest regrets. During the Pacific campaign, Mr. Riley befriended a Navajo code breaker. The friends had been on duty for several days when they were given a break, falling asleep on the ground. They awoke surrounded by rubble, quickly learning they had slept through a bombing raid. “There was a building they almost went into for sleeping,” Mrs. Robertson said. “That building was gone when they woke up.” Mr. Riley also made three lifelong friends while he was assigned to the occupation of Nagasaki, after the atomic bomb was dropped. ‘They called themselves the Nagasaki Four,” Mrs. Robertson said. “My dad was the last one remaining.” Mr. Riley felt blessed to survive the war and his early life. “He did feel like God held him in his hand,” his daughter said. “He almost became a preacher when he came back from the war. He felt like he had come through so much and that God carried him through the war and protected him.” After he was discharged in 1946, Mr. Riley started a career with Ford. He was an assembly-line manager at the Ford plant in East Dallas. He was transferred to Edison, N.J., when the Dallas plant closed in 1970. He returned to North Texas when he retired in 1977. After Ford, Mr. Riley continued to work as a handyman for the Dick Clements Group in the Lakewood area of Dallas. In addition to his wife and daughter, Mr. Riley is survived by a son, James R. Riley of Seagoville; two other daughters, Cindy Riley of Seagoville and Vicki Greve of Copenhagen, Denmark; a stepson, William Collum of Dallas; a sister, Carol Franks of Seagoville; three grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Memorials may be made to the American Cancer Society or Park Cities Baptist Church.
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