Fountaine Richardson was born on September 21, 1900 at Ben Franklin, Texas. His father and grandfather were both physicians. His grandfather was a surgeon in the Confederate Army. In 1914 the family moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas where Fount attended Fayetteville High School and the University of Arkansas. He graduated in 1922. Later he attended John Hopkins Medical School and the Arkansas Medical School, from which he graduated in 1929. In June of 1934 he married Elizabeth Haney Porter. The couple had one son, Robert Fountaine. Dr. Richardson practiced medicine for 32 years until his sudden death on November 23, 1961 while attending a medical meeting in Dallas, Texas.
During these years he was Secretary and later President of the Washington County Medical Society and President of the Arkansas Medical Society; served as Director of northwest Arkansas’ Three-County Public Health Unit in 1935-1936; was founding member and one of the first president of the Arkansas Academy of General Practice and was later President of the American Academy of General Practice; was President elect of the Southern Medical Association and was the Arkansas Delegate to the American Medical Association when he died.
Dr. Richardson also held the position of Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Arkansas Medical School. The University of Arkansas’ Board of Trustees conferred upon Dr. Richardson the Citation of Distinguished Alumnus in June of 1961.
Other areas of service include the Board of the Washington County Historical Society where he served as president in 1955, the Lions Club and two medical fraternities, Theta Psi and Gamma Rho. He served in the Army at the rank of major at El Paso, Texas, Charleston, South Carolina and overseas in India. He mustered out at the rank of Lt. Colonel in 1945.
He was well known for his ”My Credo” published in the Current Medical Digestin 1956. The creed speaks to the art of medicine and its new horizon in the 1950’s. At the time of his death, one of his colleagues stated the he was “a man with a big and tender heart, a good man, a good doctor”.
B. L. Battenfield September 20, 2008