Wendy Richards, 75, of Middletown, died Oct. 3, 2021, after a long illness. Born Sept. 15, 1946, Mrs. Richards grew up in the Bayside neighborhood of Queens, New York, the daughter of the late Edward and Dorothy Benc. She was the youngest of three children. In her early 20s she moved to Manhattan and worked for Time Magazine where she met the late Frederick Richards, with whom she had one daughter. They were married from 1973 to 1985, residing first on the Upper East Side, then moving to Connecticut in 1974.
Mrs. Richards lived in Connecticut for 24 years before moving to Los Angeles in 1998. For many of those years she held various marketing positions in the cable television industry on both the East and West coasts at Century Communications, which later became Adelphia, and ultimately Comcast Communications. In 2004 she returned east, ending her long career. A resident of New Jersey since 2009, Mrs. Richards was a development associate at Kramer Portraits in Red Bank for seven years.
She is survived by her daughter and son-in-law, Jennifer and Jeff Mazza, and her granddaughters Emma and Sadie Mazza, of Middletown; her sister Barbara Giordano of Centereach, New York; Mrs. Giordano’s four children and their families of Saint Amant, Louisiana and Long Island, New York; her brother and sister-in-law Robert and Lynda Benc, and their two sons and families, of Jensen Beach, Florida; and stepdaughters Mrs. Lisa Quinn of Cratloe, Ireland, and Mrs. Tara Lindsay, of Braselton, Georgia.
A Catholic funeral Mass was held Oct. 8 at St. Mary, Mother of God Church in Middletown at. Immediately following was a celebration of life at a private residence in accordance with Mrs. Richards’s wishes. Arrangements have been entrusted to John F. Pfleger Funeral Home, Middletown.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the American Cancer Society, Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, or Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in
New York City.
The article originally appeared in the October 14 – 28, 2021 print edition of The Two River Times.
