Obituary of Donald Ray Richardson

Donald Ray Richardson was born in Burley, Idaho on May 20, 1927 to Salena and Sim Richardson.
His older sister, Melba Katherin (Stewart) died September 4, 2020 at the age of 80, his twin sister Donna May, died in infancy on March 11, 1928.

Don loved animals and art from an early age. As a little boy he had a pet white rabbit, and he loved to tell about the time it chewed his bicycle pedal. His first carving was of Popeye, from a bar of Ivory soap. In the 1930s he was crowned marble champion of his home town, Burley.

A favorite memory of Don’s was as a 10 year old he watched President Roosevelt travel past his school in an open-roof motorcade. It was FDR’s only trip to Idaho’s capital city of Boise.

His family moved to Oregon where Don attended Lincoln High School in Portland.

Enlisting in the US Army Air Corps at the age of 17, he served in Germany during WWII.

Don attended Oregon State University on the GI Bill. He worked in the stables tending horses and sheep, built animal cages for the science lab, and as a landscape assistant helped dig a pond for algae. Often sleeping in the stables, he earned extra money working at a boarding house washing dishes and stoking the furnace.

After graduation, Don attended the Museum Art School in Portland, Oregon where he met the love of his life, Bonita Marie Barnes (1932 - 2008.) They wed June 5, 1953 and had six children: Daphne Anne (Rice), Christoper Robbin, Laird Ian (1957- 2011), Steffan Leif, Forrest Craig, and Sean Vincent Adam.

Don worked at Portland's Union Station as a draftsman for Southern Pacific Railroad, employing his photography and drawing skills.

His first job in education was teaching shop at Bandon High School in the 1950s. He taught 6th grade at Willamette Middle School in West Linn in the 1960s. At Portland’s Benson Polytechnic High School from the 1960s through the 1980s he incorporated the disciplines of industrial arts, fine arts, and multimedia projects, with a focus on world cultures, as an Industrial Arts and Social Studies teacher. He also taught summer school at Jefferson High School, night school at Benson, and worked weekends, evenings, and school vacations as a checker at two grocery stores. On occasion, he would fill in for the lighting director at Darcelle XV, where his wife Bonnie worked the door for many years.

In the 1960s, Don designed and built a home in Milwaukie emulating Japanese architecture with its shou sugi ban black exterior. Dismantling a previous home that was once a general store, he repurposed those materials to build a vacation cabin at Tolovana Park on the Oregon Coast. In the mid-1970s he moved his family to Colton, Oregon where they lived like pioneers without running water or electricity, before moving back to Portland in the early 1980s.

Don and Bonnie took the family on several road trips from Canada to Mexico and across the United States, traveling in a VW van. They stayed at state and national parks, roadside motels, and a New York City hotel. The family toured museums and factories, learned about the economies of small communities from Berea, Kentucky, to Bar Harbor, Maine, attended musical performances like the ‘Stephen Foster Story,’ Broadway’s ‘Never on Sunday,’ and Mexico City’s ‘Ballet Folklorico.’ They explored historical locations from Boston and Washington D.C. to Cape Kennedy (Canaveral), New Orleans, the Alamo, and the Southwest’s Four Corners and Mesa Verde. They drove to Seattle, and took a ferry to Canada and Alaska. Don and Bonnie continued to travel later in life, enjoying trips to Washington’s Puget Sound, British Columbia, and the Oregon coast. A world traveler, Don flew to Italy to visit his daughter-in-law’s family in Itri, and in his late 80s, his son Chris took him to London and mainland China where he walked along the Great Wall.

“Never stop learning,” was one of Don’s favorite sayings. A lifelong learner, he enrolled in Portland State’s Black Studies program at its inception. He loved spending time at the Multnomah County Library’s main branch in downtown Portland. He brought home art prints and recordings of a variety of music from the classics to world cultures. In the 1970s he hosted Friday night movies for the neighborhood kids in Cedarcrest featuring 35 mm films checked out from the library on a host of subjects from the arts and math and science, to world cultures and geography.

Don was a talented artist with an eye for beauty. He loved photography, he drew, painted with watercolors, oils, and acrylics, and sculpted. After retiring from teaching at Benson, Don was known as Mr. Chips at the Portland Saturday Market where he sold his hand carved breadboards and wooden boxes. In later years he shared his carvings as gifts with friends and caregivers.

In 2008 just short of their 55th anniversary, Don lost Bonnie, the love of his life. Having been her caregiver for several years prior to her passing, he was without a best friend and sweetheart for the first time since the 1950s. To combat this new sense of loss, he worked as a volunteer at the Salvation Army Rose Center with his youngest son, Sean. Always outgoing and gregarious, Don developed many friends among the senior set. In his late 80s, Don joined a gym for the first time. He worked out at both Hollywood and McLoughlin 24 Hour Fitness, with several trainers including his son-in-law Dennis Rice.  

Don moved from his home in Portland’s Buckman neighborhood to Emerson House Memory Care where he made many new friends among the residents and staff. He looked forward to regular visits from family. Don loved pastries and sweets of every kind, so his son Steffan arrived with treats to share every week. Don’s dearest friend, Margaret Richardson, brought a special joy to those days when he most missed his wife, Bonnie.

In his early 90s, Don moved to Pheasant Pointe Memory Care to be closer to Steffan, and Forrest’s and Laird’s families living in rural Clackamas County. Don loved their time together, and delighted in the surprises they brought, and excursions they had together outside in the courtyard on sunny days.

Brighton Hospice caregivers worked closely with the resident staff to keep Don happy, safe, and comfortable during his challenging journey with dementia.

Staff at both memory care facilities were instrumental in setting up weekly video calls for Don with son Chris in London, and daughter Daphne in Honolulu. During those visits he enjoyed watching hula videos, listening to island music, singing along with Chris’ guitar playing, looking at family photos, and hearing about their adventures living so far away.

Don loved having family and friends stop by. He took special delight in babies and his 11 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. His granddaughter Alessandra visited him often at both his memory care residences and was present to bring him a sweet sense of peace in his final moments.

On December 9, 2020, Don died peacefully, knowing he was loved, and that he had made a positive difference in our world.