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Obituary: Ruth Alfva Richard

Posted on March 5, 2009March 5, 2009 by Staff

Ruth Alfva Richard, 95, of Carrboro, NC, died at UNC Hospitals on February 2, 2009, with her two daughters by her side. “Richie” was born in Newport, RI, on September 22, 1913, to Oscar and Alberta Pettersson Eklund, natives of Sweden. After her father’s death, Richie and her sister, the late Aina Beresford, were adopted by their mother’s second husband, Blaine Richard, a chemist. After leaving Newport, where they spent happy years roaming the Cliff Walk and swimming far beyond the breakers, they were raised in Miami, FL, where Richie’s father became a yacht broker. The family lost their home in the Great Hurricane of 1926, but rebuilt and remained in Florida. Richie enjoyed a childhood of freedom: swimming at Miami Beach, exploring the mangrove swamps, and even sleeping under the palm trees in the then-pristine town. In high school, she belonged to the volleyball, baseball and basketball teams and the gymnastics and tennis clubs, activities she enjoyed in old age as a spectator. She excelled in swimming and high diving, and also played shortstop for a semi-professional women’s baseball team. Babe Ruth and Amelia Earhart were her heroes.

Richie graduated from the historic Miami High School in 1929. In 1933, she received her R.N. degree from Long Island College Hospital School of Nursing in Brooklyn, NY, one of the oldest schools of nursing in the United States. An avid horsewoman, Richie had hoped to join the Frontier Nursing Service but was too young to qualify. She undertook postgraduate training in psychiatric nursing at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, DC, one of the first large psychiatric hospitals in the U.S., and worked at the Queens General Hospital and Creedmoor Psychiatric Hospital in New York. She enjoyed challenging types of nursing and joined American Airlines as a nurse/flight attendant, usually flying the NY-Chicago run.

Richie’s maternal relatives lived in New Jersey and New York, and she forged strong ties with them despite her different life. Her aunts built houses in the Catskills, and they enjoyed hiking the creeks, collecting fossil stones, telling stories by the big old woodstoves, and hanging their coffee cups on the branches of trees as they walked in the woods with the matriarch grandmother, Blenda Pettersson. They loved flowers and animals, and kept a horse, cows, chickens and a pair of ferocious geese. Richie’s daughters learned to love this place and the strong women who lived there, all of whom had emigrated from Sweden.
Richie’s first marriage to the late Joseph McCarthy left her a young widow. She had enjoyed their brief life together: ice skating, riding their horses, and spending time at their small beach house in Bridgehampton. In 1942, she married Harry W. Taylor of Columbia, SC, a Marine aviator, and they had two daughters. During their military postings they lived in Alabama, California, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Virginia. As a military officer’s wife, Richie pursued her love of the outdoors and creativity in volunteer activities such as the Girl Scouts. Divorced in the 1950s, she returned to her nursing career in Long Island and New Jersey, where she worked at the New Jersey Neuropsychiatric Institute. She excelled at rehabilitation and geriatrics, and served as director of nursing at a Trenton nursing home.

Retiring from nursing in the 1970s, Richie moved to Carrboro, NC, and embarked on a second career selling antiques at the NC State Fairgrounds. She always had a creative streak and enjoyed scouting auctions, refinishing furniture, carpentry, and crafts. Growing up with Richie, the daughters lived in homes where at any given time there might be Chinese porcelains side by side with lamps she made of driftwood, marble tables from the estates of exiled kings, or Italian wedding chests that looked like coffins!

At her little house in Carrboro, Richie created a special world, “Grasshopper Hollow.” She made a bocce ball court in her backyard, put up a playhouse for her grandchildren, and hung bird feeders everywhere. She loved Carrboro, but her love for far-flung places did not diminish with age: in her 70s she traveled to Switzerland to vacation with her daughter’s family, and made annual road trips to Brownsville, TX for “Charro Days,” enjoying the mariachi music, food and culture of the Rio Grande border towns. In her 80s she began to study Spanish. At age 84 she continued to be physically active, whether riding her motor scooter, bicycling at Ocracoke, or riding horses with cowboys in Bandera TX. She revisited Miami and her beloved Everglades with her daughters. In her late 80s she still was still swimming and boogie boarding at Ocean Isle Beach. She was an avid reader and enjoyed listening to music: Andean flutes, Mexican mariachi, and Hawaiian hulas were among her favorites (she had learned to hula in Hawaii.) And she was a dedicated Carolina fan, especially of the women’s basketball team.

Throughout her life, Richie loved animals. Her childhood family pet was a Newfoundland and in nursing school she kept baby alligators (until they were discovered!) As a young woman she had a German Shepherd, Flash, and many years later a favorite cat, Cholley (Charlie.) In her late years she enjoyed watching birds from her window.

Fiercely independent, generous of heart, and imbued with strength, Richie was a free spirit who touched many lives. She cared for her long-time companion John Kearins until his death in 1993. She lived to see the birth of three grandchildren and two great-granddaughters. Grandchildren Gudrun and Fletcher Thompson enjoyed many fun times with “Nammie,” including trips to Florida in her VW camper. She was happy to be present at both their college graduations and weddings. Richie took great joy in attending granddaughter Katie’s soccer and volleyball games at Chapel Hill High School. Great-granddaughters Julia and Zay brought her much delight in recent years, playing games of catch with Nam, doing arts and crafts, and making Swedish cookies. Even after a major stroke in 2004, which meant that she could no longer drive and live in her own home, Richie continued to make the best of what life tossed at her, as always. She especially relished moments shared with her two daughters, such as attending UNC women’s basketball games, outings around town to the UNC campus, the Carrboro parks and Jordan Lake, breakfast at the Country Junction, Sutton’s, and the Waffle Shop, visits to the Carrboro Farmer’s Market and Maple View Farms, and trips to the NC Zoo, Ocean Isle Beach and most recently the Scandinavian Christmas Fair in Raleigh.

Richie is survived by her loving family: daughters Sherry T. Jones and her husband Rodney, and Patricia T. Thompson and her husband Charles; granddaughters Gudrun E. Thompson and her husband Jeff Sumpter (all of Chapel Hill); Katie T. Jones of Charlotte; grandson Fletcher Thompson and his wife Gretchen of Boston, MA; great-granddaughters Julia E. Sumpter and Azalea L. Thompson, and former husband Col. Harry W. Taylor, USMC (RET), of Sun City Center FL, who joins the family in mourning our loss.

The family would like to thank colleagues and family friends who were so very supportive during Richie’s last few years. In her final days, she received superb care from physicians and staff at UNC Hospitals. We would like to especially thank Thomas C. Keyserling, MD, her primary care physician for the past twenty years, as well as Marcus Muehlbauer, MD; Paul Ossman, MD; and Mukhtar Adem, MD, as well as the compassionate nursing staff of the Medical Progressive Care Unit. The family also deeply appreciates the dedicated care given by the staffs of Brookshire Nursing Center in Hillsborough and Stratford House in Carrboro.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in her memory to the Friends of the Health Sciences Library, UNC Chapel Hill, 27599-7585, or the UNC Educational Foundation, designated for the Women’s Basketball Endowment, P.O. Box 2446, Chapel Hill, NC, 27515. Arrangements are by the Cremation Society of the Carolinas. Online condolences may be sent to www.cremnc.com. A celebration of Richie’s life will be held at 2 PM Sunday, March 1, at the home of Sherry and Rodney Jones in Chapel Hill.

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