Richard C. Smith | Architect, 88

Richard Cruse Smith, 88, of Marmora, Cape May County, a longtime architect in the Philadelphia-area railroad industry, died following knee surgery on Friday, June 4, at Shore Memorial Hospital in Somers Point, N.J.

Mr. Smith worked for about 20 years for the Reading Co., designing several of the peripheral buildings along the Reading line and the coal loading stations in the Scranton-Wilkes-Barre area, said his son Scott.

He also was an advocate for the restoration of some of the commuter line station buildings. When the Reading Co. was taken over by the federal government-established Consolidated Railroad Corp. (Conrail) in 1976, Mr. Smith took early retirement.

Less than a year later, Amtrak offered him a lucrative contract for architectural consulting work, his family said. He retired from Amtrak in 1981.

Mr. Smith was born and raised in Philadelphia and graduated from Germantown Friends School in 1939.

He received a bachelor's degree in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania in 1943 and then went into the Navy, where he served in the Pacific through 1946.

A few years after returning from the Navy, he started working for the Reading Co.

In the 1960s, he married Caryl Lofquist, with whom he had three children. The couple divorced several years later, and in 1987, Mr. Smith married Blanche Carson. They lived in Ocean City, N.J., for nearly 20 years.

In addition to his wife and son, Mr. Smith is survived by daughters Caryn Sulaiman and Tracey Smith Volpe; 11 grandchildren; and stepdaughter Marion McCaughey. He is also survived by his first wife, Caryl Lofquist Wolf.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Wednesday, June 9, at St. David's Church, 763 S. Valley Forge Rd., Wayne.