Funeral services for retired Meharry Medical College Dental School Dean Dr. Elisha Roscoe Richardson, 92, will be at 10 a.m. on June 21, at First Baptist Church, Capitol Hill, 900 Nelson Merry Street.
Dr. Richardson, who was born on August 15, 1931 in Monroe, Louisiana, died peacefully at his beloved Nashville home on June 11 after more than a two-year battle with cancer.
“All of us who love Elisha are saddened by his passing,’’ family members said last Thursday, June 13. However, we receive solace from the extraordinary life and the wonderful memories that will be with us always.
“He is now at peace in the precious arms of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.’’
Dr. Richardson, a life member of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, studying Education, Biology and Mathematics.
While at Southern, he was honored by the Beta Kappa Chi Honorary Scientific Society in 1954.
He would later enter dental school at Nashville’s Meharry Medical College, graduating in 1955. While attending Meharry, Dr. Richardson, or Rich as his close friends often called him, excelled in his academic work and was inducted into the Kappa Sigma Pi Honorary Scientific Society, the Omicron Kappa Upsilon National Honor Society, the Physiology Society of the Upper One-Tenth, and was nominated the Most Outstanding Sophomore Dental Student.
After graduating from dental school, Dr. Richardson joined the United States Air Force where he was deployed to Weisbaden, Germany, where he became the first African-American Air Force Captain to be named Chief of Dental Services to the USAF Dental Clinic.
He served in the United States Air Force from 1955 through 1960, at which point he was discharged and was admitted to the University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago to study orthodontics at the highest ranked program in the United States.
Upon becoming one of seven African American orthodontists in the United States, Dr. Richardson dedicated his professional career to Meharry Medical College’s School of Dentistry and to the research of craniofacial growth.
While at Meharry, Dr. Richardson held other positions as well, including professor, tenured professor, chair of Orthodontics, researcher, author, mentor, and president of the National Dental Association as well as dean of the Dental School.
Dr. Richardson also chaired the writing of the Center of Excellence Grant, funded by the National Institute of Health, for the School of Dentistry in 1988. Upon his appointment to deanship, the program has continuously been in service since its inception, making it the longest uninterrupted grant of its type in history.
Meanwhile, Dr. Richardson, who received his Ph.D., from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, married the former Pattye Sue Whyte of Maysville, Kentucky on May 28, 1967. They were married for 39 years before Mrs. Richardson’s death on June 21, 2006. The couple were the parents three boys, Scott (Julie) Richardson; Nashville attorney Jonathan Richardson, and Mark Richardson. The couple also had three grandchildren.
Dr. Richardson, a member of First Baptist Church, Capitol Hill, for 57 years, also authored many of books during his lifetime. One book, the Atlas of Craniofacial Growth in Americans of African Descent, was published by the University of Michigan in 1991, and is still in use by dental schools across the nation.
Outside his career, Dr. Richardson held interests in golf, travel, music, reading, the Southern University Jaguars and the University of Michigan Wolverines football teams. He was also a Cleveland Browns football fan.
But he placed his love for his family above all else.
