Richard Wayne Carrell

There was a certain strength to Richard Carrell, a tough exterior, a loyal center, and a love for his family that never wavered, not once. Behind that steel was a brilliant mind, a sharp wit, and a storyteller carrying decades of knowledge with ease. His humor slipped in quietly, perfectly timed, always rooted in truth. His stories were never just stories. They were how he reached out, how he made sense of the world, and how he pulled people closer without ever needing to say he was doing it.
Richard was born in Philadelphia on November 6, 1943 and grew up in South Jersey with his younger brother, Eugene (Aiken, South Carolina). South Jersey was a place he talked about the way some people talk about home and legend all at once. If someone from New Jersey had ever achieved anything, whether in sports or politics he knew the details. And he could tell you the whole story from start to finish.
He graduated from Lenape High School at seventeen and earned a basketball scholarship to Washington College in Maryland, where he scored over a thousand points before the three point line even existed. His toughness and competitive fire shaped him well beyond the court, carrying him through the Air National Guard, law school and into a long career practicing law in Baltimore, where his intelligence and grit made him stand firm for himself and the people he represented.
In Baltimore, Richard met Lynn, and together they had four children: Betsi, Matt, Jordan, and Stefi. In the early 1990s, the family moved to Stowe, Vermont, where all four kids grew up and graduated. Richard continued practicing law in Maryland, always balancing the weight of his work with the pull of the life he had built in Vermont.
As life changed, Richard later moved to Medford, New Jersey, where he built a life with his wife Brenda. Her warmth, steadiness, and deep understanding of him brought balance to even his roughest edges. She softened the parts of him that had learned to be tough, and she supported the parts of him that needed room to think, write, imagine, and grow.
Eventually he made his way back to Vermont, settling in Morrisville to be close to his children and grandchildren. His mind never slowed down. He kept writing until his final days. Fiction, commercial financing, and ideas too restless to stay unwritten. Notebooks full of characters, theories, reflections, and that unmistakable voice that only he had.
Richard loved Vermont. He loved his dogs. He loved basketball and tennis. And he loved Philadelphia sports with a fire that could take over an entire Sunday. He believed deeply in the magic of South Jersey produce. And then there was Steely Dan. A few opening chords were enough to shift the air in the room, enough to get that subtle shoulder shimmy going while he stood in the kitchen, relaxed and present, exactly himself.
Where he shined brightest was with his kids. Sunday pasta dinners were a tradition, a ritual, a guarantee. Red sauce simmering. Bread and salad always ready. He ended every phone call with "I love you." He was not afraid to show love, and he was not afraid to stand up for the people he loved either. If he was in your corner, he was truly in your corner.
Brilliant, stubborn, fiercely loyal, funny in the truest sense, endlessly knowledgeable, a writer, and athlete, a father, a husband, a grandfather. Richard lived with intensity and heart. He said what he thought. He meant what he said. And he loved without hesitation.
His story lives on in his beloved wife, children, and his grandchildren, and in every person who ever sat across a table from him listening to one of his stories, the ones he told not to fill silence but to make connection.
Left to cherish Richard's memory are his wife, Brenda Carrell; his children, Elizabeth Ann Carrell, Matthew Richard Carrell, Robert Jordan Carrell (Katie), Stephanie Verona Heaslip (Joseph); his grandchildren, Ellis and Margo Carrell, Nina and Vivianne Carrell, and Jack, Lucy, and Nellie Heaslip; and his brother, Eugene Carrell Sr.
He was predeceased by his parents, Verona (Price) and Eugene Carrell.
Memorial donations in Richard's name may be made to the Kelly Brush Foundation.
We love you, Dad. You will live on in us, in every memory you shaped, and in every part of our lives that carries your strength and your heart forward. To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Richard, please visit our floral store.