A Lifetime, A Legacy: Wilda Richardson
Wilda Richardson on the beach in 1953.
Wilda Richardson lived life with cheerful purpose. Her extraordinary work ethic and willingness to serve as a volunteer here, there, and everywhere knew no bounds.
The longtime Avalon resident died last August at 89.
Folks remember Mrs. Richardson’s pleasant ways and generosity with her time –not only inside the family business, Richardson’s Screen Repair, but all over the island and offshore.
As a child, Mrs. Richardson survived a close call with death and the tragic loss of a brother in the waters of Avalon’s 33rd Street beach in 1945, her son Don notes. His mother only spoke of this devastating experience as her life neared its end.
As a youngster, the then-Wilda Warren and her parents and siblings from the Philadelphia suburb of Holmes, Pa., enjoyed happy times at her grandparents’ house in Avalon. Tragedy struck when Wilda, 11, and her brother Donny, 10, splashed in the ocean with their inner tubes one August morning shortly before the lifeguards went on duty. Spotting tubes floating some 75 yards offshore, lifeguard Frank Keenan rushed in and discovered Wilda doing everything in her power to stay afloat some 20 feet from one of the tubes. After she told Keenan that Donny vanished while trying to swim ashore against a strong undertow, the lifeguard placed Wilda on a buoy and searched for her brother to no avail. Donny’s body washed ashore some 12 hours later.
Wilda helping at the Screen Repair Shop, Memorial Day weekend 2019.
Still, young Wilda persevered. She played high school field hockey and the clarinet as a member of the Ridley Township High School marching band and spent summers with her grandparents in Avalon. She next trained and worked as an X-ray technician, first at Taylor Hospital and later at Lankenau Hospital, both in Pennsylvania.
After being swept off her feet by Avalon resident Jack Richardson at the old Avalon Ballroom on the boardwalk in 1958 and marrying in 1959, Mrs. Richardson worked in the X-ray department of the old Mercy Hospital in Sea Isle City.
When the newlyweds purchased their first home on 34th Street, they learned that the First United Methodist Church of Avalon would soon be a next-door neighbor. Mrs. Richardson led the family, which grew with the births of children John, Don, and Elizabeth, in being an integral part of the church’s community.
“Wilda was willing to volunteer for just about anything!” says church secretary Jan Atack. Those “anythings” included: managing sizable rummage sales benefiting the church, coordinating weddings and funerals, decorating the church from Easter through Christmas, and lending a helping hand at the church’s Vacation Bible Schools, roast beef dinners, peach festivals, Christmas bazaars, covered dish dinners, and chicken barbecues.
“Wilda had more energy than 10 people,” says Dr. David Montanye, the church’s pastor. “As St. Paul wrote, ‘Never tire of doing good.’ That was Wilda.”
Pastor Dave recalls how Mrs. Richardson chatted with passersby when she was gardening on the church grounds. “Wilda was a one-woman evangelism committee!” he declares. Sometimes people who conversed with Mrs. Richardson came to church a few Sundays later. “Wilda was so sweet,” Montanye adds.
Avalon’s first family doctor arrived in town in 1962 in part due to the benevolence of another First United Methodist parishioner, Bill Tozour. When Dr. Rodolfo Garcia opened his practice in an office attached to his home on 31st Street, Mrs. Richardson was hired as his office nurse. She worked in the doctor’s office for the next three decades. Not only that, friendships developed between Garcia and Richardson family members of all ages.
In the 1960s and 1970s, even as she worked in the doctor’s office by day, Mrs. Richardson worked evening hours on the Avalon Pier, assisting Avalon Theatre moviegoers in the ticket booth and at the concession stand.
“Mom wove herself into the fabric of Avalon,” says Don Richardson. “Wilda was everywhere. Everyone knew who Wilda was, and if you didn’t, you soon would.”
During her children’s younger days, Mrs. Richardson volunteered as a swim instructor for the American Red Cross. In doing so, his mother joined Mrs. Shock in teaching the town’s children how to swim in the waters by the 21st Street Bridge, Don Richardson says. “My earliest memories are, ‘You’re going to learn how to swim,’” he notes.
For decades, Mrs. Richardson was also a regular presence on the sidelines of her children’s many sporting events in Avalon and later at Middle Township High School. Her enthusiasm for track and field, and the accomplishments of local student-athletes including her own children, led Mrs. Richardson to become certified by USA Track & Field to serve as an official. She officiated at high school track events for 25 years.
“Mom was nonstop!” says John, who teaches manufacturing (much like woodshop) at Middle Township High. He is also the school’s track and field coach. His brother Don coaches the pole vaulters.
Wilda as Den Mother of Cub Scout Pack 70 and Jack as Scoutmaster of Boy Scout Troop 270. Don is the Cub Scout, John the Boy Scout. John would become Avalon’s first Eagle Scout, and Don followed shortly after.
“My mom bent over backwards for us. She was the driving force in making sure that we achieved. I would never have finished college without her,” John says. Mrs. Richardson instinctively encouraged any youngster who crossed her path, along with her grandchildren, Lauren and Johnny. “It was not just us. Mom cared about all the kids in town.”
Between her jobs in the doctor’s office and the movie theater, her church community, and the countless groups for which she volunteered, Mrs. Richardson knew most of the children in town and their families. “I could have run for freeholder of Cape May County and won with the campaign slogan, ‘Wilda’s Son!’” John Richardson quips.
Wilda’s beloved spouse Jack Richardson launched the family business in the 1980s. Jack and Wilda purchased the building that still houses Richardson’s Screen Repair at 39th Street and Ocean Drive in 1991. At the shop, Mrs. Richardson chatted with customers about Avalon and some of their shared Delaware County roots in between her other endeavors, which included serving as the shop’s chief administrator and bookkeeper.
Whenever someone stopped by Richardson’s Screen Repair in search of Mrs. Richardson and inquired as to her whereabouts, “I replied, ‘Just stand still and grab her as she runs past!’” says Don Richardson, who left the corporate world to work in the family business in 1995. “None of this would have happened without Wilda. Mom ran the business,” he declares from across a sizable screen table in the shop that is a delightful slice of old Avalon. “Mom and Dad were a tremendous team together,” he reminisces. “My mom called the plays and my dad made it happen. Dad was always in lockstep with Mom.”
The couple remained in lockstep for 61 years until Jack Richardson’s death in 2020.
Mrs. Richardson also proved to be a force for good beyond Seven Mile Beach as an auxiliary and foundation board member at Cape Regional Medical Center. In 1999, Mrs. Richardson was honored with Cape Regional’s first Lifetime Achievement Award in appreciation of her more than 50 years’ worth of volunteerism on behalf of the health-care system’s patients.
“Wilda was a driving force for the Cape Regional 7 Mile Island Home and Health Show and the Designer House Tour” among other things, says Tom Piratzky, executive director of the Cape Regional Foundation. “Wilda was a sincere woman. She treated people with such dignity and respect,” he adds. “Wilda had so many friends at the hospital; she is missed.”
Others will remember Mrs. Richardson and her helping hands supporting the Avalon Lions Club; the Helen L. Diller Vacation Home for Blind Children; Avalon Stone Harbor Schools’ Parent-Teacher Association; the Avalon Civic Club; the Avalon Garden Club; the Avalon Fire Department Auxiliary; the Avalon Historical Society, and the local Cub Scout troop as a den mother.
Don Richardson noted the “butterfly effect” of his mother’s survival in the ocean with her brother Donny that fateful summer day 78 years ago. The term originated in 1972 when MIT meteorology professor Edward Lorenz presented a talk titled: “Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?” Pop culture adopted the term “butterfly effect” to describe seemingly small occurrences that can greatly impact the wider world.
Wilda Richardson certainly impacted her little corner of the world by serving others with amiable determination even as she bravely bore the traumatic loss of Donny.
