Nora Richardson decided as a college student to focus on helping people, especially children. From her nonprofit work to keep youngsters safe and healthy in day care to her four decades as a social worker with the DeKalb County Department of Family and Children Services, she was dedicated to improving the lives of others. Family and co-workers remember Richardson as treating the people she served like family.
“She spent her entire career helping families and children,” said her niece Anne Lewis, an Atlanta attorney. “It was her calling. They were much more than clients to her, they were like her family, and she looked after them.
“She was the most joyful person I’ve ever met. She always saw the good in everything, and she put her goodness to work for people who needed it most,” Lewis added.
Nora Powers Richardson, 65, of Atlanta died suddenly on Sept. 30. She was born in Savannah on Dec. 5, 1950, to Richard and Margaret Powers. She attended high school in Savannah, then enrolled at the University of Georgia where she received a degree in social work in the 1970s. Following graduation, Richardson joined Save The Children, a nonprofit organization that monitored home day care providers to ensure safe and healthy environments for children. Later, she went to work for the DeKalb County Division of Family and Children Services, where she was employed for 40 years. After she retired from that agency in 2014, she was recruited by Life Goes On, a nonprofit dedicated to helping people with disabilities live independently.
“She was beloved by her clients,” Lewis said. “She was their caseworker, but more than that, she was their friend. She spent extra time making their lives easier and happier. If a client had a birthday celebration or wedding or other special event coming up, she took them on a shopping trip to get ready for it. She was always there for them.”
Debra Woods, a co-worker for 20 years, said, “There was only one Nora Richardson. She lifted everyone up around her. Everyone who knew her, loved her.”
Richardson is survived by her husband, Hank, a graphic designer and educator at the Portfolio Center in Atlanta; daughter, Elizabeth Dinerstein of Houston, Texas, and son Dick Richardson of Boise, Idaho; sisters Elizabeth Ware of Savannah, Retta Buttiner of Milledgeville, Kathleen Sanfilippo of Savannah, and Beth Richardson, also of Savannah; and four grandchildren.
A funeral mass was held Oct. 5 at Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Atlanta.
