Helen Richards

Kittery, ME – Helen Wallace Richards, 87, passed away on January 5, 2023.

She was born on May 27, 1935, in Atlanta, Georgia.  She was the daughter of Aaron Benjamin Wallace and Eltas Griffith Wallace.

Helen graduated from Columbus High School in Columbus, Georgia, and from the University of Georgia in 1958 with a BS in Education.  She went on to work in the public school system in Maryland as an elementary school teacher and librarian/media specialist.  Later in life Helen returned to college and received a degree from Purdue University in construction management.  She parlayed that into a second career as a Construction Project Manager with Barton Mallow.  She worked on large hospital projects and sports stadiums in various locations.

After retiring in 1998, Helen lived for a while near Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.  In her later years she lived with or near her son in Maine and New Hampshire and with her daughter in Washington, DC.  She recently moved to Kittery Maine.  Helen had a great love for music and art and pursued both in her retirement.  While in Washington, she completed a World Art History Certificate Program from the Smithsonian Institutution.  She loved to paint flowers and portraits of people’s pets.  Helen recently rediscovered her love of playing the piano.

Helen is survived by her son Karl Axelson and his wife Nancy of Hampton Falls, NH, and daughter Ninette Dean and her husband Paul.

She has requested no service, rather that each remember her by celebrating her life. She wrote the following words to friends and family:

Lift a glass and smile. Life sometimes Is bitter but living is sweet.

Her ashes will be placed in the Atlantic Ocean to join the earth on the beautiful Maine coast. May she rejoin the stars–for there is the essence of life.