Samuel Alonzo Richardson was born December 25, 1892, in Charleston, South Carolina, to parents Charles and Mary (White) Richardson.
Richardson received a 2-year diploma from Tuskegee University in 1912. He then came to Iowa State College (University) where he spent six years and graduated with a DVM (1918). Richardson, along with Edward B. Evans, holds the distinction of being the first Black graduate of the Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine. He worked part time as a shoe maker while living in Ames to help pay for expenses.
During World War I, Richardson served as a Sargent in the Student Army Training Corps in Ames.
Richardson married Mildred Ethel Beaubian of Charleston, South Carolina, in Boone, Iowa, on September 19, 1920. They would have four children together.
Starting in fall 1921, Richardson attended the University of Iowa where he received a B.S. in medicine and an M.D. in 1926. Richardson's first two children were born while studying in Iowa City. After graduation, Richardson interned at a hospital in Chicago.
By 1929, the Richardson family moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In the 1930 U.S. census, Richardson's profession is recorded as a federal meat inspector and a decade later he worked as a physical scientist at a hospital.
During the 1940s, Mildred and Samuel separated, with Mildred staying in Milwaukee and Samuel eventually moving back to South Carolina. Mildred died in 1957.
Samuel Alonzo Richardson, DVM, MD, died July 28, 1960, of natural causes in Lincolnville, South Carolina.
Graduation Portrait of Samuel A. Richardson, 1918. Courtesy of Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine.
Portrait of Samuel A. Richardson as appeared in the 1918 Iowa State College yearbook, the Bomb.
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