Betty W. Richards

Betty Watson (Boggs) Richards died on October 16, 2010. She was the daughter of the late Ruth O'Neal Boggs and Hoyt D. Boggs. She was born and raised in Anderson, South Carolina. After graduating from the Girls' High School of Anderson she earned degrees in Medical Technology from Anderson County Hospital in South Carolina and Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater, Florida. After the war she and her husband moved to New England where no one could understand a word of her southern drawl. After living in Bridgeport, Williamstown and Dorchester (and losing her accent) they settled in Orleans in 1952 where they worked at the Southward Inn. Ten years later she was part owner and operator of the same inn renamed the Nauset Inn. During those years, she utilized the inn as a platform for raising money in support of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. She and the late Lillian Leonard were coowners the Nauset Inn Gift Shop. She was always ready for an adventure, whether it was riding on the outer beach on the back of a flat bed truck, sailing on a freighter through the Panama Canal or helming a sailboat across the Anegada Pass. She was so fond of traveling, she was known to spend major holidays away from her family. After raising her family, she worked for Tales of Cape Cod interviewing seasoned Cape Codders and recording stories of the Cape during simpler times. She was a social worker for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts until her retirement in 1992. She attained the level of Master through the NABC, but bridge wasn't her only game. She was close to unbeatable at every game she played causing her family to accuse her of cheating which she always denied. The surviving sore losers include her brother Michael Boggs of Social Circle, GA, her cousin Alice Little of Anderson, SC, her children Carolyn Coleman and Ellen Smith of Orleans, Kathleen Richards of Duxbury, Mary Richards of Atlanta, GA and Frank Richards of Eastham; her grandchildren Aaron Nickerson, David, Michael and Mark Richards, Claire Ryan, Carolyn Hietsch, Samuel Smith and Kendra Fuentes, as well as 5 great-grandchildren. She was the mother of the late David J. Richards and Patrick E. Richards. Although she left the South, lost her accent and voted for Barack Obama, she still called her mother Mama, her father Daddy and left a cupboard full of black eyed peas. She was always late, but she was always there. She was beautiful, she was complicated. She was Scarlet O'Hara, she was Florence Nightingale. She was our mother. We love her, we miss her. You may send donations in her memory to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, 220 North Main Street, Suite 104, Natick, MA 01760