Gene Marie Richardson's Obituary
Gene Marie Davis Richardson, a north Texas resident for most of her adult life, died January 14, 2015 in Plano at the age of 89. She is survived by her children: Linda (Doc), Laura (Rone), William (Terri) and Dee (Rob); her goddaughter QiuPing Xu (NingLing); grandchildren: GW and TJ Jackson; Jessica, Thomas and Mary Richardson; Gene Marie and Frank Tempest; Elliot and Glynnis McManamy; step-grandchildren, Brent and Sarah Tempest; great-grandchildren: Elise Jackson; Connor and Eden McGuffey; and Will Richardson; step-great-grandson Max Pultenivicius; and numerous nieces and nephews-in-law. She was born April 3, 1925, the adored only child of William Jess Davis and Doris Marie Scott Davis. Except for a brief period on a Depression-era farm, Gene Marie grew up in small oil-patch towns in Louisiana and on the Texas Coastal Plains, the family moving frequently. She credited the numerous moves with her lifelong taste for travel and adventure. Her maternal grandmother, a conservatory-trained artist who was a professional tailor, was always a member of the Davis household and strongly influenced Gene’s aesthetic, her sophisticated interest in textiles and color, and her pleasure in classical music. Both her grandmother and her mother were strong, outspoken feminists, self-reliant workers who envied no one and took no guff. Her father, who always worked even in the depths of the Depression, was a gifted athlete, and Gene Marie was a competitive diver, played varsity baseball, and lettered in basketball. She was an excellent swimmer, a lifeguard as a young woman, and as an adult a Red Cross water safety instructor and waterfront director of Girl Scout Camp Rocky Point. She was a superior camp cook and a hardy outdoorswoman with a deep interest in all facets of natural history and biology, which she passed on to her children. Gene was an acknowledged beauty, “Most Beautiful” in her Nederland High School class, a bathing beauty and pin-up girl in college during World War II, a cover girl at her war-industry job. She was a competent musician, employed as a church pianist before her marriage. Later, on Saipan during the postwar U.S. Army occupation, Gene was the base’s only organist, gamely playing the pump organ—not an instrument she knew—for all the denominations’ services. Her efforts were broadcast everywhere over the camp’s public-address system, an experience she recalled as “humbling.” Her higher education began in the summer of 1942 at Sam Houston State Teachers College. She left school to work as a laboratory technician in the chemical and refining industries, then in August 1944 married Charles Richardson, whom she had met in her first college physics class. They were together 65 years, until his death in 2009. The young couple worked together in the 1950s to build public institutions in the newly energized town of Richardson, concentrating their efforts on improving public education, recreation, library and health facilities. Gene served as the first president of the Richardson Heights PTA at a time of phenomenal expansion of the student population. She devoted years of leadership to Girl Scouting, rolled miles of cancer bandages, served as a city civil defense warden, was a docent at the Dallas Health Museum (the first of its kind in the Southwest), worked the Suicide Prevention Hotline, became a Master Gardener and a bat and insect docent at the Museum of Natural History. She fully participated in local and national political campaigns, worked hard for her candidates (including her husband), served as a poll watcher, and never neglected her duty to vote. She was a member of the Order of the Eastern Star, Richardson Service League, Book Club, and Richardson Garden Club. Gene and Charles were among the 13 original mission families of the Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration, where she was a member of the Altar Guild. After the births of her children, Gene Marie returned to school, taking classes at North Texas State and later, Baylor University. She graduated magna cum laude from the Baylor University School of Nursing in 1973, subsequently making the then-highest mark on the state nursing board examination. Gene specialized in intensive care unit and intensive cardiac care nursing, demanding and stressful work she found, she said, not merely exciting but soul satisfying. A highlight of her nursing career was her summer 1980 work among Bedouin women in Saudi Arabia. She always traveled, with and without her husband, by air, land, and sea, enjoyed new and bizarre foods, beautiful and fearsome sights, people of all races and stations. She went to Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines, Japan, Saipan; Mexico and Cuba; Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey; India, Pakistan, Nepal; England, Wales, France, Belgium, Germany and Italy; Hungary and the Soviet Union; the Antipodes; Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. She rode hard-sleeper across China, and drove the daunting Karakoram Highway, the world’s highest international road, across Pakistan to China. At home, Gene Marie made a point of introducing her children to interesting and unusual foreign dishes, to give them all a taste for the new. Not an exceptional linguist but a genius at communication, she encouraged and facilitated foreign travel for her children and grandchildren alike. The world was her interest; she feared nothing. She was a great lover of order and beauty, and strove to create a home that was both comfortable and practical, marshaling her forces of fabric and color to decorate whatever space she inhabited. As a bride, she upholstered her own furniture, made her own and her husband’s coats and tailored shirts, their curtains and drapes. As a mother, she made all the curtains, bedspreads, dust ruffles, pillowcases and laundry bags for all the children’s rooms. She made all her daughters’ clothes except their underwear and socks: school clothes, nighties and pajamas, playsuits, Sunday dresses, prom dresses and wedding gowns, maternity clothes, complete layettes. She kept the home books, she did the taxes, prepared her husband’s applications for national bank charters. She conducted all the family correspondence, faithfully writing her parents, in-laws, old friends and absent children. She was never idle. Her life was not charmed. Trouble came to her and hers. Gene Marie did not repine, she did not regret, but set at once to work to solve the problems, to do what she could right there, wherever she was, with whatever she had. She persevered. Only with the death of her partner and beloved adversary, her husband Charles, did she falter, look back, and say at last of her own life, “I had a wonderful time.” The graveside service for Gene Richardson will be held on Monday, January 19, 2015 at 10:30 AM at Restland Memorial Park. Funeral arrangements have been entrusted to Restland Funeral Home and Memorial Park, 13005 Greenville Avenue, at Restland Road, Dallas, TX 75243.
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