Richard Dana Sherman Sr. of Falmouth died Jan. 24. He was 100.

He was born Oct. 7, 1923 in Providence, R.I., the son of the late Clarence Edgar and Inez Copeland Sherman and the youngest of four siblings. He was raised in Providence and spent summers in East Chop. His family originally summered in the Methodist Camp Ground until the family house was moved to East Chop, where it still stands today.

Richard attended the Moses Brown School in Providence. Following graduation, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1943 and served on a tank landing ship in the Pacific during World War II. He was involved in the invasions of the Philippines and Okinawa. He was awarded six Battle Stars and a Presidential Unit Citation.

After the war, he attended Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., from which he graduated in 1950 with a bachelor’s degree in economics. While at Trinity, Mr. Sherman was elected president of his fraternity.

During the Korean War he re-enlisted in the Navy, serving on a destroyer. He was honored and proud to have served his country not once, but during two wars.

As a young man, Richard spent several summers working at the East Chop Beach Club and racing VH15s for the Vineyard Haven Yacht Club. In 1948, while managing the Vineyard Haven Yacht Club, he met Joanne Fuller from Vineyard Haven. They were married in 1951, had three children and continued to enjoy every summer on Martha’s Vineyard until her death in 1997.

For 35 years, he was a partner in King Gage Engineering in Natick, a business established in the early 1940s by his father in law Norman W. Fuller. He went on to represent a number of industrial equipment manufacturers over the years, establishing himself as an honest, dedicated and well-respected sales professional, retiring in 1985 at the age of 62.

Richard was very civic minded, as his father had been. He served on several community boards including being president of Tisbury Waterways in Vineyard Haven, as president of his neighborhood association in Falmouth and was president of the Falmouth Hospital Auxiliary, where he volunteered over the course of more than 25 years.

He was active in other community organizations, including the Masons. He volunteered at the Dukes County Historical Society, now the Martha’s Vineyard Museum. He was involved in the restoration of a local steamer, the Nobska, and collected more than 200 pictures, articles and handmade models of various steamers that served the Cape and Islands. He was also a member of the John Wesley United Methodist Church.

Richard is survived by his three children, Lee Sherman Wainwright of Birmingham, Mich. and Vineyard Haven, Richard Dana Sherman Jr. of McLean, Va. and Jeffrey Fuller Sherman of Marathon, Fla. He is also survived by five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren as well as many nieces and nephews.

A private family interment will take place at Oak Grove Cemetery in Vineyard Haven at a later date.