BOMBER MEMORIAL



Richard Van Tassel Anderson was born July 1, 1942, in Norwich, Connecticut. He died May 22, 2019, at Hospice in Kennewick, Washington, age 76. He attended schools in Walla Walla before moving to Richland in 1956, where he attended Chief Joseph Junior High School and graduated from Richland's Columbia High School in 1960. He moved to Seattle and attended the University of Washington before enlisting in the U.S. Army, in which he served from 1962 to 1964. He attended the (Army) Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in Monterey California and then served in the U.S. Army in Ethiopia as an Italian linguist (4th USASA Field Station). He worked in recreational real estate in Seattle and was the proprietor of several taverns. He graduated from the University of Washington, receiving a BA in Economics in 1972, and worked toward an MBA in accounting.

Richard was a brilliant software coder and expert in systems development, programming, and analysis, and taught these skills to others. He served as the Secretary of the Washington State Soccer League, comprising 60 teams and 1,100 players, and served several positions promoting soccer teams in the Seattle area. He also was the Secretary/Treasurer of the Capitol Hill Senior Soccer Club and was a member of Beta Alpha Psi National Accounting Honorary. He avidly followed Richland High School sports. He enjoyed skiing and playing soccer, volleyball, golf, bridge, and Burmese cats. He was an ardent linguist, studying many languages, and read and collected hundreds of history books.

He was predeceased by his mother Dorothy Van Tassel Anderson McDougall, a social worker, in 2000; his father Richard E. Anderson, Jr, in 1941; his stepfather Marion James McDougall, in 1983; paternal grandparents Richard Ernest Anderson Jr. and Mary Louise Haake Anderson of Massachusetts; and maternal grandparents Harry Field Van Tassel of Delaware and Florence Louise McCarthy Van Tassel of Pennsylvania. He is survived by his former wife Nancy Candace Jones Barnes.