Martha Ann Richardson

June 14, 1940 — Feb. 3, 2112

Martha Ann Richardson, 71, passed away peacefully Friday evening, Feb. 3, 2012, at Woodland Memorial Hospital, with her sister at her side. She was suddenly stricken in September while in France with a rapidly progressive and extremely debilitating illness that remained undiagnosed until the time of her death.

She was born in Riverside on June 14, 1940, the first child of Hilton Bebb Richardson and Elsie Crail Richardson. Together with their second daughter, Helen, the Richardson family moved from Riverside to Davis in 1950. Martha Ann attended Davis public schools, graduating from the “Red Brick” Davis Senior High School, Class of 1958.

She went on to graduate from UC Davis with a bachelor’s degree in home economics in 1962. In the summer following graduation, she traveled to Europe with college friends, beginning a lifelong love of travel and adventure. Upon her return, she relocated to Boston, where she furthered her education and honed her administrative skills by attending the Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School.

She then worked several years for a professor of International Law at Harvard University, until the lure of politics drew her to Washington, D.C. There, she worked for Charles Goodell, the U.S. Representative from New York, who was later appointed senator to fill the vacancy left by the death of Robert F. Kennedy. From that position, she next went on to work for John B. Anderson, the longtime U.S. Representative from Illinois and one-time presidential candidate.

Finally leaving the realm of partisan politics, she went to work for the Merit Systems Protection Board, an independent quasi-judicial agency established to protect federal merit systems against partisan political and other prohibited personnel practices. After retiring from this agency, she found inactivity not to her taste, so she sought temporary work at Science Applications International Corporation in Washington, D.C. By 2002, she had secured a permanent position at SAIC, working full-time there for the next ten years before finally retiring in October 2011.

Staying in regular communication with various family members and many friends was always an important and vital part of her life; she took great interest in each person’s activities and interests. But wanderlust seems to have been the one great consuming passion in her life. In her youth she enjoyed traveling extensively throughout the United States. Loving a challenge, she climbed to the top of Mt. Lassen as a child and Mt. Whitney as an adult, following in her grandfather and father’s footsteps with quiet pride and a sense of continuing family traditions.

Internationally, she visited a variety of European and Mediterranean countries, including France, Germany, Great Britain (including England and Scotland), Greece, Italy, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey. One unique activity she pursued in several of these countries was special personalized cooking classes. She introduced this delicious kind of travel to her sister, who accompanied her on several later cooking trips.

But her wanderlust led her to more exotic locations as well, including Vietnam and the Caribbean. She particularly loved South America, twice visiting it, and spent considerable time in Argentina, Brazil and Suriname.

She leaves behind her sister, Helen F. Richardson, as well as many cousins and countless friends, who all will miss her greatly. A memorial celebration of her life will be held at a future date. Donations in her memory may be made to the UCD Arboretum Enhancement Fund, UC Davis, 1 Shields Ave., Davis, CA 95616; or The Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, 2700 F Street, NW, Washington DC 20566-0001.

Short URL: http://www.davisenterprise.com/?p=138694

Posted by Special to The Enterprise on Feb 21 2012.
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