Stephen Worth Tarrant

1940 - 2022

TARRANT, Stephen Worth, 81, of Richmond, passed away January 15, 2022. Born July 13, 1940 in Dallas, Texas, he was the son of the late Julian Werth Tarrant of St. Louis, Mo. and Sue Schooler Tarrant of Oklahoma City, Okla. His father's ancestors settled in Essex Co., Va. in 1685.

His father's profession as a city planner and land use expert moved the family from Dallas when Mr. Tarrant was three to Detroit, to the San Francisco Bay area when he was seven and a half and in 1950 to the Westover Hills area of Richmond and then to his present home in Woodland Heights.

Mr. Tarrant was active as a Cub Scout, Boy Scout and Explorer and achieved Brotherhood rank in the Order of the Arrow. He felt lucky to live on the east "blue collar" side of Forest Hill Park and so attended Bainbridge Jr. High School in "Dogtown" and old John Marshall High School downtown. While there, he was proud to be a member of the JMHS Cadet Corps, Company "D," Class of 1958. The Corps had the best high school band in the entire state for five years running then and "D" Company won the Competitive Drill while he was a member. He well remembered wetting his white cotton dress gloves so the polished wooden stock of his 1903 Springfield rifle wouldn't slip out of his hands during manual-of-arms evolutions and go clattering to the floor.

Mr. Tarrant's formal education was at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., where he majored in Architecture and Civil Engineering. He practiced as a detail designer in these fields and as a Commercial Fire and Casualty Insurance Loss Control Engineer.

From 1960 on, he became seriously interested in good music – symphonic, folk, Broadway and jazz – old-style jazz and blues – and in railway history. He had been an active member of the Old Dominion Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society and its Richmond Railroad Museum for 60 years and employed his education and experience as a professional consultant/designer for at least three operating railway museums/tourist railways. One of them is an electric streetcar museum, of which he was Chief Engineer for 10 years.

Following his mother's death at 92 in 2002, after his retirement, he worked for two years as Nursing Supply Manager at Beth Sholom Home, where he was blessed to discover, and be discovered by, his partner in life, his wonderful wife, Sandra.

A funeral service will be held 11 a.m. Friday, January 21, at the Richmond Railroad Museum, 1st and Hull Street. Interment will follow in Hollywood Cemetery.