Theresa Martin Richardson, of Virginia Beach, Virginia, passed away peacefully and with dignity on Sunday January 25th, 2026.

Theresa Martin McKenna was born on September 23rd, 1934, to Robert and Margaret McKenna, in the village of Bells Hill, in the parish of Bothwell, North Lanarkshire, Scotland. Theresa was the third youngest of thirteen children in the McKenna family.

In 1938, the McKenna family moved south to start new lives in the provincial market town of Hitchin, Hertfordshire, forty miles north of London. The McKenna’s took up residence in a simple but sturdy house on Tilehouse Street and became beloved members of St. Mary’s Parish. Theresa’s mother Margaret was well known to the parish for providing a simple meal and a warm fire to the many displaced people in pre-WWII Hitchin.

The McKenna children, Theresa included, at a very early age, would earn a few shillings helping at the weekly market by St. Mary’s Church.

From a very early age, Theresa learned the lessons of providing for oneself and caring for and being charitable to others.

Following the war, in 1952, Theresa served two years in the Women’s Royal Army Corp (WRAC) where she trained to be a nurse. Theresa enjoyed her period of national service, the highlight of which was to be selected by her regiment to make a presentation to the young Queen, Elizabeth II, who had also served in the WRAC.

Following her marriage in 1958, Theresa moved to the adjacent town of Letchworth Garden City, where she would live for the next twenty years, raising three children, Dale, Andrew, and Lynda.

Her children have many happy and fond memories of their childhood, especially the summers that they spent on Mersey Island, a small island off the coast of East Anglia, in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

Theresa also helped provide for her family by working as a social worker and nurse in a girl’s school and an assistant at a retirement center among other things.

In 1979, Theresa with her young daughter emigrated to the United States, living in Florida and Middleburg, Virginia, before settling with her two sisters in Virginia Beach.

For the next 34 years, Theresa worked as a private duty nurse and caretaker for many Virginia Beach families. She also put herself through massage therapy school to become a therapist before retiring at age eighty-four.

Theresa also kept in touch with her large and widespread family, returning to the United Kingdom many times and visiting siblings in New Zealand, Sydney, Australia, and the Australian Outback.

Even in retirement, Theresa kept busy. She lived actively and independently. She walked almost every day, meeting people on her walking routes. Or at the gym where she worked out four times a week.

Last August, Theresa went on a cruise with her son Andrew and his family and was surprised by her daughter Lynda, who came unannounced from the United Kingdom.

Theresa is survived by her son Dale and his wife Kathleen, of Richmond Virginia, and her son Andrew and his wife Heidi, of Charles Town, West Virginia, and her daughter Lynda and her husband Alan, of Axminister, Devon, England.

She is also survived by her grandchildren, Michael, Katherine, Virginia, Presley, Austin, Garrett, Taylor, and Shelby, and her great grandson Reggie.

Theresa lived two lives. One in the United Kingdom and one in the United States. She was a decent, hardworking woman, proudly independent and loving, Theresa lived a full life in which her Catholic faith never wavered. She will be missed very much. Her last words were that she was “going to be with Mary and Joseph and Abel because he was a good man.”