Forgotten Oswego Resident Coming Home After More Than 100 Years

The citizens of Oswego are invited to attend the burial of Miss Kate Gary Richardson on Thursday, May 1st, 2025 at 11 a.m. at the Page Memorial Chapel at Riverside Cemetery in Oswego.
Miss Richardson was born in Oswego in 1866 to Charles and Cornelia Richardson. She lived and worked in NYC as a schoolteacher. While visiting Woodstock, NY, on July 14, 1923, she had a stroke and died the next day at a nearby hospital. She was 56 years old, single, and childless. Her body was sent to Queens NY for cremation but her urn was returned to a Woodstock funeral home, where it stayed for 100 years. When the funeral home closed recently, her unclaimed remains were relocated to Wiltwyck Cemetery in Kingston, NY, and a search directed by cemetery volunteers was begun to find living relatives.
After many months of research, a great, great niece was found who gave permission for Miss Richardson to be buried. After a fundraising effort for the money needed to open the family plot, Kate Gary Richardson will finally be reunited with her parents and will have her eternal resting place at last. Wiltwyck Cemetery volunteer Kathleen Wade will drive the urn containing Miss Richardson’s cremated remains to Oswego where she will be remembered and honored with a respectful burial on May 1st. All are invited to attend.

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