Deceased January 10, 2021

View alumni profile (log in required)
Read obituary

In Memory

Stewart Richmond - 1962 Olio
Stewart S. Richmond died on Jan. 10, 2021, in hospice, after several years of progressive Parkinson’s disease. I first met Stew in 1957, when we both were summer students (American Field Service) in Greece. Although we didn’t see each other in Greece, we got to know each other well during a week-long, lightly chaperoned “quarantine” in Paris. (We were supposed to go back home on the ship, but some kids from Turkey who traveled with us had come down with the flu: the infamous Asian flu of 1957-58.)

On return to the States, we learned we were both going to Amherst and decided to room together. We started out in Stearns and then spent our upper years as roomies at Alpha Delt. I got into AD on Stew’s coattails. They wanted him: he was a preppie and an ice hockey jock. He insisted that we come in as a “package deal.” 

Early in our first year, we went to Mt. Holyoke, where I introduced Stew to my good friend from Wilmington, Carolyn Lewis. (She had been one of 20 girls in my high school class.)  They hit it off, dated all through college and were married in 1962. I was best man, later became godfather to their first son. We both had two sons and a daughter; each of our daughters went to Amherst.  

After college and medical school, and after two years of internal medicine residency, we were both “recruited” into active duty, I with the Army Medical Corps and Stew with the Air Force. We both spent a year in Vietnam, and good fortune fell upon us when Stew was assigned to take over a preventive officer position with my medical unit in Chu Lai; he subsequently took over my position when I rotated back to the States. We spent two and a half weeks together in Chu Lai, watching movies, drinking beer and occasionally dodging rockets and mortars at night. We both learned to play handball at the officer’s club at division headquarters. 

Stew practiced internal medicine in his home state of New Hampshire his entire career and was instrumental in having his group become the first satellite clinic of Dartmouth’s Hitchcock Clinic. He was beloved by his patients and became a leader in his medical community.

Stew’s passions were his family (three children, five grandchildren), travels around the world with Carolyn and individual sports (skiing, biking, marathons, golf).

His classmates described Stew from their college remembrances as “gentle, engaging, positive;” “good example of friendship, intelligence, goodness;” “one of the good guys.” These attributes continued throughout his life. 

Stew will be missed by many: colleagues, family, friends. I will miss him terribly.

Larry Beck ’62

Stewart and Carolyn Richmond