Deceased March 9, 2021
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In Memory
Richard Inglis III—whose family and friends called him “Richie”—died peacefully at his home in Walla Walla, Washington, on March 9, 2021. According to Marion Inglis, his wife of 61 years, “[Richie] chose to stop eating and drinking,” after a “25-year” bout with Parkinson’s disease, which gradually had incapacitated him until “he could no longer get around.”
Up until then, Richie had lived a robust life: studying, teaching, counselling others, playing music, running, biking, and swimming—in triathlons—and raising a family of five children with Marion.
Richie was born in Boston but grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio. He majored in psychology at Amherst (and three of his brothers subsequently followed him to the college.) After Amherst, Richie attended Duke University, where he earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in psychology.
At Amherst, Richie lettered for four years on the varsity swimming team, and he was an excellent fraternity-intramural athlete. He played clarinet in the Amherst Band and later performed with the Walla Walla orchestra, playing clarinet, saxophone, and kettledrums.
After Duke, Richie completed postgraduate work at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and taught psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno. While teaching at Reno, Richie also wrote a textbook on psychological testing. Marion, who studied at Mt. Holyoke College and Duke, ultimately earned a nursing degree at the University of Nevada, Reno.
After the couple moved to Walla Walla, in 1973, Marion began a career as an operating room nurse and Richie opened a counseling practice interspersed with teaching stints at Whitman College and Walla Walla University.
As reported by the Walla Walla Union Bulletin, “[Richie] cared deeply about others, and friends and family turned to him for his counseling skills. He refused to take full market rates for his counseling services, and he volunteered at Walla Walla Community Hospice for many years.”
Richie and Marion raised two biological children, two sons from Vietnam and a daughter from Korea. One child, Andrew, died in a car accident in January 2021. Richie is also survived by nine grandchildren.
Richie is remembered fondly from his Amherst days by his senior class roommates, David Bornemann ’61, Bert Rein ’61, and Eiro “Boo” Yamashita ’61. Richie was a quiet, introspective student with an intense interest in those around him, which probably inspired his life as a scholar and counselor.
He also had a latent sense of humor. When last I saw him in 2017, he playfully reminded my wife and me of the time when he, Bornemann, Rein, and Joe Brecher ’62—all from Phi Delt—became men-about-campus models for the August 1960 issue of Mademoiselle, a national magazine. Richie still had his copy of the magazine.
Richie fit in perfectly in the magazine as one of those handsome, young Amherst guys but with a sly, silly, what-am-I-doing-here smile. Richard Inglis III lived a vigorous, caring life, and exited on his own terms—at home, surrounded by those who loved him.
Paul Steinle ’61