Richard Grace, 80, illustrator; created brain research center

Illustrator, cartoonist, and painter, Richard E. Grace also led a colorful life away from the drawing board.

At 16, during World War II, he joined the Marines, was wounded at Okinawa, and received the Purple Heart.

But like so many veterans, Mr. Grace rarely talked about his war experiences, said his son, Richard C. of Westford. His most cherished accomplishment was the establishment in 1976 of the Doreen Grace Brain Center in New Seabury, named for his daughter who died that year of a rare brain virus. She was 21.

Mr. Grace died of brain cancer at the JML Nursing Rehabilitation Home in Falmouth on Tuesday, which would have been his daughter's birthday. He was 80.

For 38 years, he lived in Acton, where he ran an advertising and marketing agency before moving permanently to his summer home in West Falmouth.

In 1980, at one of the annual swims by top athletes in Falmouth to raise funds for the brain research center, Mr. Grace told the Globe, "The brain is the number one organ and we know so little about it. And neuroscientists don't really have a home." He and his wife, Eleanor (Carter), provided that.

Mr. Grace's reticence to talk about himself was well-known.

"Dick would never talk about his remarkable life," said Robert Barlow, of Syracuse, N.Y., a neuroscientist and chairman of the board that oversees the center's fund-raising. "He was one of the most humble people I've ever met, the most generous and creative person I have ever known. He always focused on others. If he had been a scientist, he would have won the Nobel Prize. He lived a life well and mainly for the benefit of others."

Since Mr. Grace and his wife founded the non profit center and built the building with the help of donated funds, they have "helped thousands of families " with information and in other ways, Barlow said.

"They wanted to enhance information exchange between clinicians and scientists so, hopefully, discoveries can be made more rapidly. They wanted the center to have outreach to the community and to loved ones who have been afflicted with all types of brain disorders and now have a very extensive network," he said. "I can't tell you how many hours Dick and Eleanor have listened to families. Their compassion to people was just amazing."

Born in Lynn to Henry and Ellen (Shea) Grace, Mr. Grace grew up in Lynn and Swampscott.

After four years in the Marines, he returned to New York and enrolled in The Student's Art League. In New York, Mr. Grace was a cartoonist and illustrator. He worked with Ernie Bushmiller, creator of the famous "Nancy" comic strip, and assisted with the "Gumps" comic strip, his son said.

During this time, he said, his father also drew editorial cartoons for newspapers.

In 1952, he married Eleanor, who had been his pen pal when he was serving overseas in the Marines and she was in junior high school.

From New York City, the couple moved to Stamford, Conn., where Mr. Grace continued his career. After he switched to advertising, he continued to paint in oil, watercolors, and pastels, and to draw in pen-and-ink. He gave most of his work to friends.

While in Acton, Mr. Grace wrote two sports books and a medical book, which he researched by riding around in a van with a doctor, his son said.

He also volunteered at the Concord Reformatory, tutoring inmates, and for a time published a newspaper called "Hear Ye Publications."

Mr. Grace still carried a bullet in his shoulder and shrapnel in his body from the war, his son said, but he "never complained."

"He said that he promised that if he got out of the Marines alive, he would dedicate himself to God. And, he did."

In addition to his wife and son, Mr. Grace leaves a sister, Brenda Hayes of Salem.

A funeral Mass will be said at 11 a.m. today in St. Joseph Church in Woods Hole. Burial will be in the Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne.