Bob Richards at 103: 'It's the man upstairs'

By Peter Finney Jr.
Clarion Herald

Bob Richards was so sickly with asthma as a child growing up in St. Louis in the 1920s that his family doctor suggested to his parents not long after the Great Depression that he be sent to a warmer climate “if they could afford it.”

As it turned out, Richards’ father was a chief accountant for Woolworth’s, and he did have the financial resources to send Bobby, then 19, to New Orleans to attend Loyola University beginning in 1939, before the outbreak of WWII.

When Richards was born at his St. Louis home on April 20, 1920, though, he was so unresponsive that the doctor wrapped him in a blanket to wait for the coroner to arrive.

“I was born with double pneumonia and whooping cough,” Richards said. “Oh, boy, my mother and dad had a hard time. They thought I had died. They started covering me with a sheet.”

The amazing thing when looking at Richards today – at 103 years old – is his robust physical and mental condition. The father of nine, grandfather of 11 and great grandfather of 19 lives independently in his Metairie home, with daily visits from his four living children who check in on him and marvel at his cheer and quick wit.

Until a few years ago, Richards, who worked for decades as a public property administrator for the city of New Orleans, was a member of the Monday morning money-counting crew at St. Ann Church and Shrine.

“Arithmetic was my favorite subject in grammar school,” Richards said. “Boy, was I good in math. I still do the tables in my mind. When you collect the money, you sort it into $1s, $5s, $10 and $20s, and then someone else records it. At first, I ran the coins because I have a coin machine upstairs. We had eight people counting money on Mondays. We had a good group.”

Richards met his late wife Aline (Gillette) on a blind date when she was still in high school at St. Joseph’s Academy on Canal Street. 

Was it love at first sight?

“For me!” Richards said, laughing. “She was beautiful. I was never the same after that.”

After Aline graduated in 1942, they ran off and got married, and they had their marriage blessed by a Catholic Army chaplain in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where Richards had been assigned.

“The priest took us into town to the Catholic USO, and we had coffee and donuts for our reception,” Richards said. “He was the greatest man I ever met.”

Three of his children died shortly after birth. One lived for two days, another for 38 minutes. Richards considers it a miracle that a third infant was baptized by a nurse seconds after delivery before dying.

“The doctors said it was stillborn, but the nurse said it was breathing,” Richards said. “She had a glass of water nearby, so that as soon as the baby’s head showed, she baptized it.”

In his years working for the city – making sure every public building was well maintained – he supervised a crew of 38 carpenters, 27 painters and seven electricians. He installed machinery at the city’s fire stations to generate oxygen on-site.

He did everything by the book.

“I never took anything – nothing,” Richards said. “I had a great reputation at City Hall. I treated everyone fairly.”

Richards attributes his longevity to “the good Lord, a good diet and a good family.”

“I have four children who take care of me, and they’re here every day,” he said.

He hasn’t been able to attend Mass at St. Ann, so he receives Communion at home every morning. He solves daily crossword puzzles, shouts out the answers to “Jeopardy” and “Wheel of Fortune.” He watches sports at night but flips to the nightly rosary on EWTN.

Father Billy O’Riordan, the St. Ann pastor, came to his home April 20 to celebrate Mass on his 103rd birthday.

How does Richards remain so positive with all the rancor in the world these days?

“The man upstairs,” he said. “He begs people to pay attention to him, and I do.”

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