IN MEMORIAM RICHARD REMMEL RUTTER
PALO ALTO LODGE #346 Palo Alto, California
8 October 1932 - 20 September 2025
BSI:  Mike Scanlan




Richard (Dick) Rutter died at home on September 20, 2025, less than three weeks shy of his 93rd birthday. Dick was born and raised in San Francisco and went to Stanford University, graduating in 1954 with a degree in Biological Sciences. He was a longtime Cardinal sports fan, attending games his entire life.

Dick received his D.D.S. (Doctor of Dental Surgery) from the College of Physicians & Surgeons, now The University of the Pacific, in 1958 and a Certificate in Orthodontics at Columbia University in 1961. He was in private practice for 25 years while also teaching part-time and later full-time, for 51 years as a professor at the University of the Pacific. He established the graduate program in Orthodontics at the UOP in 1971 and served as Department Chair from 1966-1981. He taught at Würzburg University, West Germany, for three years, from1986-1989. At the 50th anniversary of the Orthodontic program, several alumni established the Richard R. Rutter Orthodontic Endowed Scholarship to honor him.

Dick was introduced to Sherlock Holmes as a child, both by his grandfather who gave him a book of Sherlock Holmes stories and by his parents who took him to see the Basil Rathbone movies during World War II. It wasn’t until 1978 that he learned about a wider Sherlockian world through an eight-week course that Dr. Orval Graves offered on Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle. Afterwards, the class formed the Redwood City, CA. scion, the Knights of the Gnomon.

Dick became very involved in all things Sherlockian, attending a John Bennett Shaw seminar at Stanford, Silver Blaze races in the Bay Area, and traveling with the Sherlock Holmes Society of London on their Swiss Tour to Meiringen in 1988. He wrote articles for several Sherlockian journals and also translated two German Sherlockian novels into English. Dick was also very proud that, inspired by a reference in REDH, he used his dental skills and materials to fabricate a limited edition of 17 left patellae (kneecaps) in presentation cases, one of which is now in the Meiringen Sherlock Holmes Museum. Dick was invested in the Baker Street Irregulars in 1983 as Mike Scanlan.

Dick was a charter member of The Master’s Masons.

In addition to Sherlock Holmes, Dick had a passion for the Wizard of Oz and enjoyed finding and writing about connections between Doyle and Baum. He also won the costume contest at the annual Oz convention for ten years in a row.

Dick is survived by his wife of 66 years, Joanne McHenry Rutter, their children Karen J.R. Weber and James Bowland Rutter, and grandchildren.