Ronald Roy Seagrave joined the Navy after high school at age 17. He served on a submarine, closely working with the Rear Admiral (Commodore) for his deployment. His years in the Navy molded him into the man he became. What the Navy taught him, he used every day and always looked for ways to give back to other veterans.
Ronald Roy “Ron” Seagrave was a complex, curious, stubborn, patriotic, loyal friend, and intellectual Yankee with colonial roots. He secretly longed to be a gentleman farmer of the old South. In any case, as they say, he “landed” in Dinwiddie, Virginia, a dizzying journey from Connecticut, his place of birth, with stops in the U. S. Navy, Florida, a return to Connecticut, then to Massachusetts and Maine along the way. He was a police officer after leaving the Navy, during which time he became one of the first PAs serving as an EMT, an engineer, a teacher, and a researcher. Still, it was history that provided the passion and fabric for his existence. His undergraduate degree was in History and helped establish the Sergeant Kirkland’s Museum and Historical Society in Fredericksburg near the battlefield. He published the highly successful “Platoon” and approximately 44 other books and wrote several books himself.
Seagrave’s great vision was a healing farm for veterans. A place where veterans could go to enjoy nature in all its forms. He spoke effusively about this vision and could talk for hours about livestock, crops, and poultry. The farm would be a place where veterans at all stages of life and healing could come be in nature and heal in any way they needed.
The healing farm is being designed so that it is accessible to anyone with any form of mobility so that they can come look at all animals on the property or jump in to help and have a “job” to do.
His goal was to make sure veterans were supported in every aspect, from something to do all the way to having a safe place to visit and talk with people that understand the struggles they go through!
The Seagraves-Williams Farm, in Dinwiddie, Virginia, was established in 2019 and provides veterans and disabled persons access to the therapeutic and uplifting benefits of nature, farming, and interpersonal relationships in a safe and peaceful setting. Using critically endangered livestock as a prime focal point of needing their — the veteran’s and disabled person’s — care and protection.
The Seagraves-Williams Farm will continue to grow and carry on Ron’s memory and help as many veterans as possible.
To meet him was to come in touch with a Life Force, a restless spirit who went from one project to another. So lengthy is his bibliography that we could not cover it in an obituary, but his wonderful books are only part of his legacy. The ultimate mark of a person is the potency of their memory.
For those who knew him, he will always be standing behind the counter at Sergeant Kirkland’s, casting a quizzical eye at the world, viewing it through the prism of a life well lived. A life of pain and triumph, a life of achievement and one worthy of commemoration.
Ronald Roy Seagrave passed away on November 7, 2024, surrounded by his family at the McGuire Veterans Hospital. Ron’s greatest love was that for his family, he is survived by Jeannie Lutz, his daughter, Amy Lynn and husband Garry Williams, grandchildren Ryan Feeney and wife Katie, Lance Feeney, Ashley Holt, Brandon Williams, and great-grandchildren Hannah and Isla.
If asked, Ron would say his family was larger, as he cared for his close friends as much as he did his family. If he called you his friend (not an easy title to earn), you became a part of his family.