Dr. Richard Brenneman Cattell

Dr. Richard Brenneman Cattell, a resident at Meadowlark Hills, passed away Sunday November 15, 2020 at the Good Shepard Hospice House surrounded by his family’s love. Richard was born in Boston, Massachusetts on August 11, 1927. He served in the US Army as a PFC from 1945-1946, and graduated from Williams College and Harvard Medical School. He was married to Judith Frances Boland on Sept. 7, 1951 in Duxbury, Massachusetts. He was a loving father, husband, grandfather, and friend to everyone. As his nephew said, ‘We wish fair winds and following seas for the Skipper of the Pequod.’

Richard was a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in private practice for about 40 years in Denver and then worked with the Veteran’s Administration, and also helped found the Denver Psychoanalytic Institute. Richard was an avid outdoorsman, who loved backpacking, fly fishing, skiing, and sailing. He loved tennis and played almost daily throughout his life. He even continued after recovering from spinal surgery. He was on the Williams College Nordic Cross Country team, and continued to ski jump for fun after he, his wife and daughter moved to Colorado for his psychiatric internship at Denver General Hospital and his residency at Colorado Psychopathic Hospital. He downhill skied in Vermont as a teenager, and encouraged his son, daughter and wife to learn in Colorado. The family soon had a tradition of a ski trip to a different ski area each Christmas or spring break. Dick took Augusts off, following his family’s tradition, and took the family on car camping trips (even with bunk beds for Eric and Cindy in the very large canvas tent). Dick and Judy both wanted to get away from the crowds, and soon switched to backpacking. Dick even started sewing, first a tent, then sleeping bags and other gear (from Holubar kits).

The August trips often involved backpacks, and eventually Dick and Judy backpacked in almost every Colorado wilderness area, as well as Wyoming and Hawaii. They also travel and hiked throughout most of the southwest‘s national parks and monuments. When he and Judy could no longer carry backpacks, they switched to llama packing. Even into their 70s, they took their grandchildren on two-week long llama packing trips. Richard instilled in his children and grandchildren a love of the outdoors. He was infamous for always wanting to “go just a bit farther” for a better campsite or view. Even now, wanting to go a little bit longer, is referred to by in-laws and grandchildren as “being a Cattell”, or going on a “Cattell walk”.

Dick was a keen sailor, growing up in Boston with summer racing in Duxbury. Being landlocked in Colorado, he longed for sailing, so he, Judy and family went on three bare boating charters in the Caribbean, and Dick was able to enjoy the wind in the sails. The family also chartered sailboats in the Greek islands and along the western cost of Turkey to visit the ancient sites of Ephesus, Bodrum and the island of Rhodes. In retirement, he and Judy trailered their sailboat, the Pequod II, across the country from Lake Mead, to the Texas coast and Duxbury, Massachusetts. Richard was also an adventurer, who rafted down the Danube River from Germany to Yugoslavia, and the Grand Canyon and Green Rivers in the southwest; and hiked the Machu Pichu trail in Peru, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, and the Annapurna trail in Nepal, and bicycled through China.

Mount Vernon, Colorado was a very important part of Dick’s life, where the family lived from 1958 until 2011. He was honored to serve on the Board of Directors several times and worked with the community to improve wildfire protection through thinning the forests of dead limbs, beetle kills and creating defensible spaces, as well as promote construction of the Club House sewer treatment facility and the new tennis complex with clay courts and platform tennis.

In May 2011, Dick and Judy moved to Meadowlark Hills in Manhattan, KS to be closer to family and have enjoyed making new friends and attending frequent McCain Auditorium and Hale Library music concerts at Kansas State University. Dick also had the opportunity to get in one last sail several years ago on Tuttle Creek Reservoir with the help of the Blue Valley Yacht Club.

Richard is survived by Judith, his wife and co-adventurer of 69 years, daughter Cynthia Cattell (John) of Minneapolis, MN, son Eric Cattell (Connie) of Manhattan, KS, grandchildren Keith, Alex, Elizabeth, and Phillip, and great grandchildren Ursula and Laszlo, and his sister Jeanne Cattell Rhinelander and brother-in-law William Dunmore. He was preceded in death by his parents: Dr. Richard B. Cattell and Agnes Matzinger Cattell, his brothers, William, and John Cattell, and his sister Mary Virginia Dunmore.

Memorials may be made to the Meadowlark Foundation to benefit the Good Samaritan Fund, and the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Manhattan Helping Hands Fund. Memorial contributions may be left in care of the Yorgensen-Meloan-Londeen Funeral Home, 1616 Poyntz Avenue, Manhattan, KS 66502.