Mary Alice Richardson

Mary Alice Richardson – cherished mother, beloved grandmother, great aunt, and forever friend to all who knew her – died peacefully on the Ides of March, 2012, one month shy of her 95th birthday. Alice was born April 15, 1917 in Gate City, VA, the daughter of Joseph and Mary Ellen Patton Henderson. Upon the death of her father in the 1918 flu epidemic, her family moved to Eastern Oregon, where she attended Wallowa schools and completed nurses’ training at St. Anthony’s Hospital in Pendleton; she became an R.N., then worked in La Grande and Coquille until her marriage to Dee Richardson in 1942. The following years were spent raising four children in Coquille and helping her husband at his grocery store in Myrtle Point. A few years before her husband’s retirement in 1982, she opened a china shop in her home – providing the perfect guise for trips to New York to visit her daughter, shop for Limoges, and tour the Met again! As shopkeeper, Alice enjoyed meeting new people as much as selling her teacups and paperweights. In 1994, Alice moved to Lake Oswego with her husband, who died the following year. Alice will be remembered by many friends for her sharp memory and engaging conversation until recent months. With pink cheeks and welcoming smile, she has always seemed a picture of health. Some did not realize Alice had debilitating, degenerative arthritis in her back, hips, and legs and suffered almost-constant pain most of her life. She seldom complained, and was always ready to take a cake to a neighborhood picnic and discreetly savor the finer fruits of life within her reach. In 2007, soon after her 90th birthday party, Alice’s health took a sudden downturn, causing her to worry that she’d enjoyed her “swan song” and realize she could no longer live alone in her home. Though appreciative of being able to live with family for the next three years, Alice hated leaving her Lake Oswego home and losing the independence she had relished with such gusto. Survivors are her daughter, Mary Dee Morris; three sons, Barry, David, and Douglas Richardson; daughters-in-law, Janet (wife of Barry) and Mary (wife of David); and grandson John (& wife Genny) Richardson, all of Portland except Barry, who lives in Coos Bay. Grandson Adam Richardson lives in Baltimore, MD; and several nieces and nephews live in OR, WA, CA, VA, & TN. Alice most recently became great-great aunt to Carter Gould, who joins his sister Charlotte in Centreville, VA; both are children of great nephew Stephen (& wife Karyn) Gould, and grandchildren of late nephew, Eric (& surviving wife Lily) Gould, of Springfield, VA, who is son of Alice’s late sister, Mabel, and late brother-in-law, Dr. Leland B. Gould, previously of Coquille. A private graveside service is planned at Norway Cemetery, followed by a memorial Mass at Holy Name Parish, Coquille. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to Providence St. Vincent’s Hospice, Portland, or to Red Cross-Haiti.