ANDERSON ARCHIVES

Mary’s mother, Rose Mansbridge Richardson (1892 - 1984), led a full life from her childhood in Nagasaki Japan to her death in a hospital while traveling in England at the age of 93. The decades in between were active, productive and shining with her irresistible personality.

Rose spent a wonderful childhood in Japan with a large loving family as part of an English ex pat community in Nagasaki. For a few years, Rose went to a strict catholic boarding school in Shanghai China. She also attended a school across the harbor from Nagasaki to which she commuted by boat every day. Summers were spent in the hills near Nagasaki. (?) Rose was bright, mischievous, attractive and fun. On the back of a snap shot of her by a motorcycle it reads: “My first experience on a motorbike - can ride decently now and full speed. Not a bit scared.”

She emigrated to Canada in 1917 where she married Francis Harrie Richardson, a Canadian, in 1922. Rose and Harrie lived in Ottawa where they had two children, Peter (1924) and Mary (1925). She worked as a secretary to Arthur Meighen who would become Prime Minister. While the kids were quite young, Harrie found a job in New York City. (According to family legend, it was Rose who on an advance trip to the city secured it for him!) The family moved to Flushing and then, a few years later, to Lincoln, MA following Harrie’s work. Peter and Mary went to school in Lincoln and Concord where the story joins with Bill Anderson and Concord. The difference between their mothers was poetic: Esther very much the local woman of nature and Rose the social cosmopolite (similar to the difference between Bill and Mary.) Both women were smart, talented and strong.

After Mary and Peter had graduated from high school, Rose and Harrie moved frequently along with Harrie’s successful and fascinating career, from which he retired in Tennessee. Rose survived Harrie who died at 76 in 1975, by nine years during which time she was active. She traveled to Japan in 1981 to revisit her childhood and also to Britain in 1984 where she broke her hip and ultimately died. The accounts of her life by both Mary and Rose are filled with interesting detail and are recommended reading. See below.