Remembering Art Richardson

Artemas P. Richardson II, of Exeter, New Hampshire (formerly of Fremont, New Hampshire, Brookline, Massachusetts, Needham Massachusetts, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), died quietly of age related complications at the age of 96 on 18 January, 2015. Friends and family knew him as Art. Many knew him as a talented landscape architect who came into the profession with the generations that followed Frederick Law Olmsted and other pioneers of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a profession he chose almost on a whim, having always had a talent for drawing and an appreciation for how people shape the land. He majored in Fine Arts at Williams College, graduating in 1940 and then heading off to Pennsylvania State College for a second degree in Landscape architecture "because it seemed like a right thing to do at the time."

The war interrupted his plans. He spent WWII as a Navy Intelligence officer, engaged in the planning and execution of the full range of Allied landings in North Africa, Italy, and the south of France. He served at sea, ashore, and in the air above enemy territory. Assigned late in the war as a photo analyst and strategic targeter, in Washington, DC, he met Frederica McAfee, a former Woman Air Service Pilot (WASP), then serving with the OSS. Following a 3 month courtship, they were married on VJ Day, 02 September, 1945. After leaving the Navy, Art continued his earlier study of Landscape Architecture, moving to Iowa State College, receiving his degree in 1947.

Mr. Richardson was invited to join the firm of Olmsted Brothers, in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1948. In 1952, John Olmsted, the younger son of Fredrick Law Olmsted, made Mr. Richardson a partner in the firm. Over the next several decades, Art acquired sole proprietorship of the firm, becoming its president and treasurer. In the course of his fifty-year tenure at the Olmsted office he was key to the creation and development of hundreds of designs credited to the Olmsted firm including portions of the U.S. Capitol grounds, the Jefferson Memorial, Rock Creek Park, the National Cathedral, the National Catholic Cathedral, and the various campuses of the Mississippi College system, including the campus master plan of "Ole Miss".

In 1981, Mr. Richardson transferred the buildings and grounds of the Olmsted firm, including its fixtures and more than a million architectural drawings, to the National Park System. It is now maintained as the Fredrick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, in Brookline, MA. As a landscape architect, Mr. Richardson was licensed to practice in thirteen states, He was a former President of the Boston Society of Landscape Architects, a Director of the NH Landscape Association, Director of the Granite State Landscape Architects, and Director of the Herb Society of America. He was recognized as a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, and was a lecturer on the art and profession at Harvard University.

Many of Art's acquaintances knew little of this rich career. They saw a side of him that was dedicated to civic activity. His professional interests drew him into local land planning issues. He was Chairman of the Needham, MA Planning Board, and a member of that same town's Conservation Commission. In his later years, Mr. Richardson became actively engaged in New Hampshire local and state interests, including election as a Fremont, NH Trustee of Trust Funds, Chair of the Exeter River Advisory Committee, and Chair of the Fremont, NH Conservation Commission.

When his sons entered Cub Scouts in the 1950s, Art and his wife, Freddie, became enthusiastic leaders, staying with the Boy Scouts long after their sons had moved on. They held workshops to train scores of adult leaders, and Art became a District Chairman of the Boy Scouts of America, and a member of the Boy Scouts' Boston Council Executive Board. He holds scouting's Silver Beaver award for service to the organization.

Art's greatest enjoyment, however, came from the Rotary Club. He joined the local club in Brookline, Massachusetts in the late 1950s, went on to be its president and then eventually District Chairman and a Director of Rotary International. As a Past Director, Art Richardson initiated the Rotary International/World Health Organization joint program, Polio Plus, a highly successful, ongoing effort to eradicate polio worldwide. He and his wife traveled throughout the world as he represented several presidents of Rotary International. The walls of his apartment were covered with photos of his meetings with colleagues in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, throughout Europe, and across North America. In the course of his travels he became acquainted with prime ministers, presidents, and other international leaders. He took particular joy on the occasions of meetings with the actress Helen Hayes and with Pope John Paul. He was a Paul Harris Fellow and a recipient of the Rotary Foundation's Citation for Meritorious Service.

In semi-retirement after 1979, he moved to Fremont NH, where he continued to do design projects for his favorite clients but became increasingly involved in the Exeter Rotary club and in helping to start several other clubs in the area. The final fifteen years of his life were spent in Exeter NH, a resident of Langdon Place. True to his lifelong pattern of civic duty he was immediately engaged in the activities of his new community. He was the President of the Residents' Association. In addition to running movies each day for the enjoyment of all the residents, Art shared his extensive Nutcracker collection each Christmas, a collection well enough known that he was profiled on New Hampshire Public Television's "Chronicle" as "the Nutcracker Man."

Artemas Richardson was born in Philadelphia, PA on 24 May, 1918. He was predeceased by his wife, Frederica (McAfee) by more than ten years. He is survived by his sister, Susan Richardson.Hinkel of Markham, VA, and his five children, Steven M. Richardson of Winona, MN, David R. Richardson, of Exeter, NH, Ann R. Howland, of Danville, NH, Vida Nichols Butterfield, of Deerfield, NH, and Stanley A. Richardson, of Bennington, VT. He is further survived by eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.             
 

This past December during a visit Dottie took some pictures of Art's famous nutcrackers