Father John M. Richardson, O.F.M.

Father John M. Richardson, O.F.M., a retired pastor of St. Mary’s parish in Obernburg, died Nov. 25 at St. Anthony’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Fla. He was 82.

Father Richardson was pastor of St. Mary’s, a small country parish in Sullivan County, from 1996 until he retired in 2008.

He had previously been a chaplain for 20 years at the Veterans Administration Hospital in West Haven, Conn., where he earned commendations from the Veterans Administration and from the state of Connecticut. He retired from that post in 1988 as chief of chaplains at the hospital.

He then was assigned to St. Francis Friary in Manhattan, where he served as a promoter for the Franciscan Missionary Union. He served in Rhode Island, 1991-1992, before his appointment to St. Mary’s.

Early in his priesthood, he served in the mission of the Franciscans of Holy Name Province in Goias, Brazil.

Born in Elmira, he entered the Franciscans’ St. Joseph Seraphic Seminary in Callicoon in 1947, and in 1950 was received into the Order of Friars Minor in Holy Name Province, where he was given the religious name Remigius. From then on, he was known by the friars as “Gus,” even after he reverted to his baptismal name. He was ordained in 1956.

Father Richardson is survived by a sister, Sister Therese Richardson, R.S.M., of Pittsford.

Father John F. O’Connor, O.F.M., provincial minister, offered the Funeral Mass Nov. 30 at Our Lady of Grace Church in St. Petersburg, with burial in the friars’ plot at Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Clearwater, Fla.