Hilton Head Island icon lived life of faith, recruited a village to build a community
Lois Richardson once walked along Hilton Head Island’s beach shaking her fist at God.
It’s a hard image to grasp of a community icon, a woman of deep faith who died peacefully at her son’s home Friday at age 101.
Lois Richardson was best known for her close walk with God.
First Baptist Church was formed in the flamingo pink home with no heater that she and her late husband, Norris Richardson, built in 1956 on a $1,500 oceanfront lot.
She posted notes about the new services on the window of the “supermarket” at Coligny Circle that the Richardsons opened weeks after the first bridge to the island swung into service.
She later helped start North Island Baptist Church, and in 1957 she helped instigate one of the island’s longest-running traditions, an Easter sunrise service on the beach.
For almost half a century, Lois Richardson hosted a Tuesday morning Bible study in her home.
And I’m sure she would not mind me sharing the closing words of the book she published at age 90, “Love Letter to My Children”:
“I gave my life to the Lord when I was 12 years old. Life has not always been easy, but when God is present in one’s life, He gives us the strength and endurance to overcome all our fears. By His light, I walk through darkness.
“I have learned that true happiness is centered in our fellowship with God. I have been able to see most of my children make their profession of faith in Jesus so I know that the love that He has for each of you will help you to live life to the fullest.”
The Richardsons were can-do, will-do people of faith, too busy to shake fists at God.
Lois, who had a world of energy, came by it honestly. When she went to business school after high school in the Florida panhandle, she told her mother that she just could not learn to type. She got a typical steel magnolia response:
“She told me that ‘I could and I would,’ and that was the end of me wanting to quit. I learned at that age not to be quitter.”
RECRUIT A VILLAGE
Lois Richardson would use her 80- to 100-words-per-minute typing skills as the first Sea Pines employee.
Founder Charles Fraser asked her to type letters to every major community developer on the East Coast to see what they thought they did right and what they did wrong.
Fraser was often a lonely shopper at the Forest Beach Market, when both the Richardsons and Frasers had plenty of excuses to quit.
Few people had ever heard of the rural island when the Richardsons had moved there, trading their comfortable life in Thomasville, Georgia, to become island pioneers.
Norris Richardson had built up a chain of five grocery stores in Georgia. The children had ponies, and piano lessons. But he had a dream, which he and his family turned into today’s Coligny Plaza, the heart of Hilton Head’s downtown with 60 shops and restaurants.
It fell to the Richardsons to recruit a village to come alongside: pharmacist Joe Capin, a barber, a beautician, a hardware store, a movie theater, and a restaurant called the Fin ‘N Feather where you could get fried chicken to-go at 9 o’clock at night, if you can imagine.
When Norris died in 2001, Fraser said, “Norris Richardson will forever hold a key spot among the handful of people whose work and entrepreneurial spirit built modern Hilton Head.”
Lois Richardson was all-in, even though she came with her hands full.
Her oldest, Mary Katherine, had just graduated from junior high school. James N. “JR” Richardson Jr. was 11, and little Collins was 4.
Mary Katherine, who was born on her mother’s birthday, would drive the school bus to Bluffton. JR would live like Huck Finn, bringing home baby alligators. He too would be an early employee of Sea Pines, and heavily influenced by Fraser as an adult when he developed Windmill Harbour and Westbury Park.
And Collins would play an unusual role in his mother’s painful walk on the beach.
‘YES’
Lois grew up in an era when her mother made all her clothes, and taught her to sew.
“During my years in high school, I made all of my clothes,” she said. “I could purchase two yards of material for 10 cents, and a spool of thread for 5 cents. My first store-bought dress was the year I graduated from high school in 1938.”
Norris was the oldest of five brothers. His mother died when he was 9, and shortly after that a brother was accidentally shot and killed on Thanksgiving Day. Norris went to live with an aunt, attended a one-room schoolhouse and went to work at an A&P.
When Lois and Norris met, the only day they had for courting was Sunday. They lived in different small towns, and Norris would drive to see her. Courting was church, Sunday dinner and chats on the porch.
They’d been engaged two years when, one Sunday evening, Norris turned his Ford V-6 around halfway home, tapped on Lois’ window, and asked her to marry him. Now. Today.
“I had always dreamed of having a nice church wedding, but this did not seem possible as my father was not well at this time and my mother and younger sister were living with her parents,” Lois would later write.
The people she was boarding with knew the justice of the peace, and they were indeed married on that very Sunday evening.
Life was filled with babies and business when came a fateful visit to a home Norris’ father had at Chechessee on the river, where they say you can call heaven and it’s not long-distance.
Norris’ brother, who they called Junior, had built the first consolidated, red-brick elementary school on Hilton Head. Junior sold Norris that first oceanfront lot. And then together, they built Forest Beach Market on a $50,000 lot in the woods near Coligny Circle.
That was a bold move, and it would change Hilton Head history.
‘WHY?’
Son Collins was 14 when he became very ill.
This was a decade before Hilton Head had a hospital.
He was eventually operated on at Georgetown University Hospital. His bladder was so enlarged it had caused his kidneys not to develop and grow.
Soon, it was decided he needed a kidney transplant.
Lois gave a kidney to her son, in an organ transplant operation rare for the time.
Collins’ body would later reject his mother’s kidney, and he would die at age 17.
Even though those “extra” years of his life were lived to the fullest, it took a great toll on Lois.
“The year 1969 was a very difficult year for me,” she wrote.
“Norris was in the hospital about two months that summer. Jimmy (JR) had to go to Vietnam. It was very difficult for me to take care of the business and grieve over my losses.
“That is when I really learned that God is sufficient for all my needs.
“As I walked on the beach one day feeling very sorry for myself and asking God ‘WHY?’ He answered me and let me know in a special way, that as long as I am searching for answers, it draws me closer to Him.
“From that time on, I began to heal.”
She’s asked that her tombstone read: “She kept the faith.”
David Lauderdale may be reached at LauderdaleColumn@gmail.com.
This story was originally published March 19, 2021 at 3:32 PM.