Sincere charm, grace, civility
Remembering longtime Lake County Coroner Barbara Richardson
As friends, family and colleagues recalled the life of former Lake County Coroner Barbara Richardson, the recollections centered on her personal and empathic touch dealing with people under the most difficult of circumstances.
“It was the commitment to providing compassionate care to the families that really drove her,” recalled Steve Newton, who today is the chief deputy coroner.
Richardson, the county’s coroner from 1982 — 2003, died Wednesday of natural causes, according to her son, Jim. She was 93.
Raised in Grayslake, Richardson attended Warren Township High School and, after getting married in the mid-1940s and having three children, she began her professional career working as a secretary at Grayslake Community High School, her son said. “I look at my mom as a real overachiever. She made the most of the opportunities,” Jim Richardson said. “She wanted to show people — including her father — that she was going to be successful in whatever she did.”
Richardson’s career evolved in 1968, when she was one of the first seven employees hired as the College of Lake County was forming, according to a 2018 school resolution honoring her achievements.
“The connections she developed and fostered among members of the college community were significant and long-lasting,” CLC Trustee Emeritus Dr. William M. Griffin said in a statement. “We will remember her with deep respect and admiration, as she brought what she learned from experiences at CLC into her roles on the CLC Foundation Board, Lake County’s government, and other community organizations.” Several years later, Richardson’s one-time classmate Mickey Babcox, who was Lake County coroner, recruited her to work for him, and in February 1977, she was named deputy coroner.
In 1982, Babcox resigned, and Richardson was appointed coroner, becoming the first woman to hold the office in Lake County. She subsequently won five reelection campaigns and praise for her approach to her work.
“She was one of the best bosses I have ever worked for,” said Newton, whom Richardson hired in 2000. “When it came to the coroner’s office, she treated everyone she was in touch with like they were her own family. She was caring, and you could tell it was more of a way of life for her than just a job.”
Former Lake County Clerk Willard Helander was friends with Richardson but also spoke admiringly as a fellow elected official.
“Barbara was absolutely charming and gracious, but she was also a person who did not mince her words,” Helander recalled. “She was the best of both worlds. She brought charm, grace and civility to her job every day, but she also brought determination and character and real innovation. She brought it to a new level.”
Helander remembered a program Richardson introduced in which she would go to high schools before prom and talked to large groups of students with a mangled car, ambulance and flight for life helicopter as a backdrop.
“She goes through the scenario of having to go to a parent’s house and sharing the terrible news of an accident because their children had been drinking and driving,” Helander said, recalling the stunned silence of the children listening to Richardson.
“You see these kids just tearing up over the prospect that it is one of their classmates that could have died,” he said. “I believed she saved thousands of lives with her presentation.”
One of the most high-profile cases for Richardson came in February 2000, when she confirmed publicly on WGN Radio that the station’s longtime morning host Bob Collins was killed in a midair plane crash.
Collins happened to be a personal friend and political supporter of Richardson.
“She was very broken up by that one,” Newton recalled.
WGN Radio reporter Steve Bertrand recalled that Richardson was gracious in her dealings, not only in the coverage of the Collins crash, but her general work with the press.
“She took her job and her responsibility very seriously, but she also was always very cooperative,” Bertrand said. “She was wonderful to work with. She was one of a kind in a way where she conveyed information in a respectful manner, not just for the victims and their families, but also for the media who had questions about it.”
Richardson decided to step down from the office in April 2003.
“I’m going to be 75, and I think it’s time to hang it up,” she told the Chicago Tribune at the time.
Away from the coroner’s office, Richardson was active in many groups and organizations that promoted women’s initiatives, plus and health and safety, in addition to the Gurnee Community Church and the CLC Foundation Board.
Aside from her son, survivors include daughters Jill and Jody and their spouses, along with seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Services are pending.