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GREENWICH, Conn. Caroline "Poppy" Richardson Mead of Bethlehem, Pa., and formerly of Greenwich, died Oct. 4 at Muhlenberg Hospital after a long illness. She was 67.
Mead previously worked in advertising sales in Greenwich.
Born Dec. 28, 1944, she was a daughter of Wallace James and Caroline Willis Richardson. After an early childhood spent in Maryland and Indiana, she and her family settled in the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania, in 1949.
An artist, she graduated from Moravian Preparatory School in Bethlehem and earned a bachelor's degree in design from Drexel University. Mead was the first female advertising salesperson in the history of the Chicago Tribune.
She continued her career in advertising sales in Greenwich and in Fairfax County, Va., before transitioning from writing for the camera to being in front of one. She was an on-air personality at a station in Washington, D.C. in the 1980s before joining Fairfax County's Public Broadcasting Service affiliate as a writer, producer and host of a variety of public affairs programs.
Mead returned to the Lehigh Valley in the 1990s and served as a volunteer in the emergency department at Muhlenberg Hospital and as a reader for the "Books on Tape" program for the blind.
She is survived by a son, Peter R. (Juliana D.) Mead, of New York City; two sisters, Ann Richardson (R. Keating) Hagmann, of Cos Cob, and Helen Hope Richardson, of Yardley, Pa.; and two nieces.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 11 a.m. Wednesday at Packer Memorial Church in Bethlehem. Calling hours are from 9:30 to 10:45 a.m. at the church before the service. Burial will follow at Holy Saviour Cemetery in Bethlehem. Connell Funeral Home is handling arrangements.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to Moravian Academy, 7 E. Market St., Bethlehem, PA 18018, for the benefit of the school's art and music programs, or to Lehigh Valley Health Network, Development Department, 2100 Mack Boulevard, Sixth Floor, Allentown, PA 18105, for the benefit of OACIS/Palliative Medicine Services.
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