On September 28, 2026 Richard Oscar Hommel officially retired from life. Against his wishes, we, his family, are writing an obituary, more for us than for him.<\/p>\n
Born in Pittsburgh on December 17, 1938, to the late Marion Louise and Ernest Hommel, the older brother of the late Eda Hommel Cowan (Mort).<\/p>\n
Richard graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School and Alfred University, without high honors. He served in the Army Reserves. After graduating college, he went to work for the Caloric Corporation before joining the O. Hommel Company. Following his father\u2019s death, Richard became the third generation president until the sale of the company in 1989.<\/p>\n
Richard served on several boards only to challenge the other members. He was an officer of the American Ceramics Society and the Classic Car Club of Pittsburgh. He served on Mt. Lebanon\u2019s Board and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.<\/p>\n
Aside from his wonderful family, Richard\u2019s loves were collecting and working on antique cars, verified by all of the grease on his clothes, traveling and testing out bathrooms throughout the world, exercising, playing cards, and helping others.<\/p>\n
Richard was a generous person. He plowed snow for charity, knocking over only one mailbox, repairing friends\u2019 homes even if they had to hire people to repair his handiwork, and many other kind gestures.<\/p>\n
Richard leaves behind his \u201ctrophy wife\u201d of 57 years, Susan Silverman Hommel, his \u201cmini me\u201d Jonathan Hommel, his \u201cfavorite child\u201d Rikki Hommel and favorite son-in-law, David Weisberg, the joys of his life, Marti and Ozzy Weisberg, sisters and brothers-in-law Aileen and Harold Zofcin, Steve and Lisa Silverman, nieces, nephews and dear friends.<\/p>\n
Richard\u2019s larger than life persona, generosity, stubbornness, and trade mark sense of humor will not be forgotten. His family and friends will remember him with a smile and love in their hearts.<\/p>\n
Donations may be made to Temple Emanuel of the South Hills, 1250 Bower Hill Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15243.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On September 28, 2026 Richard Oscar Hommel officially retired from life. Against his wishes, we, his family, are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-296038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}