WOODSTOCK, VT — Daniel Putnam Richardson, known to all as Dan, died peacefully at home on the afternoon of February 12, 2020, surrounded by his loving partner, Margaret Hiatt, his children and extended family. He was 78. In early 2018 Dan was diagnosed with MDS (myelodysplastic syndrome), a rare bone marrow failure for which there is treatment but no cure. Dan confronted this new reality directly and openly, including writing “Surprised: A Richardson Story,” an autobiography that begins:
“As I sit in my office a week after my 77th birthday, I am wondering ‘Who am I?’ Or perhaps better said: ‘What am I?’ What I am is a man with a terminal disease, and I feel compelled to evaluate my life. Beyond that, I can give you specifics. I can say I was born on Sept. 17, 1941. I can tell you my parents came from Boston Blue Blood families. I can add that I had a passive and not very happy childhood…And then I can tell you about the evolution of my remarkable family.”
Dan Richardson was a student at the University of Denver in 1960 when he met Patricia Randle from Goodsprings, Alabama. She had come to Denver to work after graduating from the University of Alabama as a history major. Dan was only 20 and needed parental permission to marry Pat in 1962. Dan worked three jobs while attending Denver University as sons Danny and Randy were born in quick succession. Soon after moving to Massachusetts and starting a job at Gillette, their daughter Betsy arrived. During their 51-year marriage they added other, surrogate, children and a total of nine grandchildren, even as Dan’s peripatetic career path took them to eight states and one foreign country before they finally settled in Woodstock in 2009.
Dan spent a year at Boston University Law School before taking a job as business manager at the Woodstock Country School in 1970. After three years there, the family moved to Costa Rica where Dan ran a family business. Among his projects in Costa Rica was developing a school for learning disabled kids. Returning to the United States in 1976, Dan spent a year as assistant dean at the Vermont Law School and another year as assistant headmaster at the Barlow School in Amenia, NY, before being hired as the headmaster at the all-girls school Wykeham Rise in Washington, CT. He was there four years, helping the school to close gracefully when its finances gave out. That was followed by a year when Dan was headmaster of a K-8 school in Newport, RI, and Pat was his assistant head.
Dan enrolled in the Harvard Graduate School of Education in the fall of 1981, graduating with a master’s degree the following spring. He later wrote: “It had become clear to me that in the snotty world of private schools, my University of Denver degree carried no clout – but a master’s from Harvard solved everything.”
The Tatnall School in Wilmington, DE, hired Dan as head of the Upper School in 1982. He stayed there five years, before being hired as headmaster of the Cape Henry Collegiate School in Virginia Beach, VA, a K-12 school that was in somewhat shaky shape when Dan arrived. He wrote: “I’d never worked at a school with so many trailers – and on top of that the physical plant was in subpar shape” – and only the lower school was academically strong. During his 16-year tenure, Dan brought the school to a high level of cultural and educational excellence, increasing the size and diversity of the faculty and student body. In 1993, only six years after Dan arrived, Cape Henry was designated a Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education. During this time Dan took great pride in his commitment to the Hampton Roads community where he served as president of the Urban League and an officer of the National Association of Independent Schools.
With the onset of Pat’s eventually fatal kidney disease, Dan retired in 2003 and the Richardsons moved to New London, NH.
In the final section of his book, Dan wrote: “But for what it’s worth, this is how it feels to live while dying…. You can still walk and talk and drive and go see movies and drink. You can still live while you’re coping. But you start slowing down, and then you wind up giving up time each week to getting blood transfusions to keep you going…. [And then] you make a decision to stop…. I want the family to continue…. Ultimately, that’s all I want – I want them to come together and laugh. I’m about to leave, so listen to me, please. This is what matters to me. Do you hear what I’m saying? I want you to laugh.”
Dan continued to laugh after meeting Margaret Hiatt with whom he shared many discussions, classes, books and trips around the country – including a week in Key West just before Dan died. Margaret was a wonderful partner to Dan, and is now a vital member of the Richardson family.
Dan Richardson is survived by three children and three others considered children, as well as nine grandchildren: Danny Richardson and partner Katie, and his three sons, Tanner and his partner Sarah, Cooper and his wife Olivia, and Walker; Randy and wife Susi, and their son Josh and daughter Liza, and her husband Nick; Betsy Richardson; Nils Haaland and his wife Sherri; Amy Biancolli Ringwald (Arts Writer for the Hearst newspaper Albany Times Union, who edited Surprised), and her two daughters, Madeleine and Jeanne, and son Mitchell; Constance Royster, and her daughter Avery. Betty Hatch and her daughter, Lesley. Dan is survived by his partner, Margaret Hiatt.
Well beyond that extended family, Dan touched countless others with his enormous heart. He was loving and loved, a mentor to many and a guiding force in the lives of friends and former students – an “indelible human being,” as Amy called him on her blog. Walking his dog Sally, relaxing with a martini, playing bridge in his living room or emailing his “daily drivel” from his busy, sunny office each morning, he lived every moment of every day with passion, generosity and joy. He will be missed.
Dan Richardson was predeceased by his wife, both parents and both brothers, one of whom also suffered from MDS and whose life was prolonged by a stem cell transplant from Dan.
There is a service Saturday, February 22 at 12:30pm at the Little Theater 54 River St, Woodstock, VT 05091. If you are interested in attending, please send an email to dprmemorialservice@gmail.com. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to: American Civil Liberties Union, Southern Poverty Law Center, Upper Valley Humane Society, or Upper Valley Trails Alliance.