BJ Richards, 77, an accomplished and admired Oak Parker, had a deep and lasting impact on children and families in the village, died peacefully on June 12, 2024, surrounded by her family. Her influence grew from her unique early childhood education program and the counseling she did with local families on parenting and family life.
BJ ran a popular home child care program called BJ’s Kids out of a two-flat on the east side of Oak Park for 24 years — and then in Forest Park for several more years. It ceased operating in 2021 during the pandemic.
The program started in 1977 on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with six toddlers in a small cooperative in space provided by Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers union at their headquarters in New York. Her magnetic character and commitment to young children quickly found an enthusiastic community base with New Yorkers desperate for quality child care in the early days of feminism with large numbers of women working outside the home.
UIC Education Professor Emeritus Bill Ayers, who worked at BJ’s Kids for eight years as he and his life partner Bernardine Dohrn raised three sons in New York, said, “BJ was largely self-educated, having read widely and deeply in child development and early childhood education. The fact that she never attended college surprises colleagues because of her broad knowledge of and huge reputation in the field.”
She was a remarkable observer of children. Each day, by hand, she wrote keen observations of each child’s activities, expressed feelings, remarks and evolving friendships in a notebook for each child that the parent could review at pick-up or take home to inform that night’s discussion with their partner and/or child. Later, as the internet appeared, this became a daily email.
On weekends, BJ spent countless hours helping families deal with their concerns and problems around child-rearing. The solutions she offered were neither simplistic nor prescriptive, but based on inquiry and joint problem-solving.
In New York, BJ’s Kids quickly became known to celebrities and activists for its anti-bias and child-centered approach to early learning. Gloria Steinem visited and profiled BJ in Ms. magazine. Pete Seeger did a concert as a fundraiser for the program. Civil Rights activist Rosa Parks spent a morning with the kids and became a supporter. Dr. Benjamin Spock visited and wrote about her work. Marlo Thomas of the groundbreaking TV special Free To Be …You and Me became a supporter and friend.
In 1987, when she adopted her infant daughter from an orphanage in Brazil, she sought a fresh start. She moved from New York to Chicago where she started a family childcare program in her new home in Logan Square. Her upstairs neighbor and friend, Judi Minter, also ran a home childcare program. The two providers had a collaborative community-based approach to nurturing the lives of a diverse group of families. The two programs shared the yard.
Next, she brought her program to 225 N. Taylor in Oak Park in 1995 and she and Judi co-located again in a second residential two-flat and immediately attracted an enthusiastic community of Oak Park families.
BJ loved going to brunch at her regular spots around town before a matinee at the Lake Theatre. She had a love for interior design shows on HGTV. She and Dandara would often go on drives to admire Oak Park and River Forest architecture. She loved handing out candy at Halloween from her front porch, looking at the costumes and reveling in the joy on kids’ faces when she dropped candy in their baskets. She was an avid fan of Broadway musicals, Oprah Winfrey and Bruce Springsteen.
She enhanced BJ’s Kids with local musicians, storytellers, yoga teachers and elderly helpers. Graduates of her program often returned as teen assistants. Learners became teachers informed by their knowledge of her evolving offerings to youngsters. An organic community organizer with a commitment to nurturing growth and seeking fairness at the center of her life, her activism extended into neighborhood activity planning, volunteering for committee work with Oak Park’s visionary Collaboration for Early Childhood Care and Education, and serving on the board and recruiting families to The Children’s School, a progressive alternative school with a similar anti-bias and self-directed learning philosophy.
She shared her legendary children’s picture book collection by lending out books to parents, doing annual workshops on quality literature for kids’ development, and ultimately in retirement donating much of the collection to the local center, Kindness Creators Intergenerational Preschool on site at the Oak Park Arms retirement home.
She lived at Bella Terra, a nursing home in Morton Grove for the last four years of her life. She continued mentoring and advising teachers, providers and parents on the internet, and loved visits from Dara, Alex and their two “grand-dogs,” Remi and Millie. Last winter, she was elected president of the Residents Council and was hard at work in improving the care at Bella Terra when she was hospitalized on June 4.
BJ is survived by her daughter, Dandara Richards and her son-in-law Alex Cullen; her Oak Park resident “family by choice,” Judi Minter and John Ayers, Maya Minter and Dede Minter; her sisters, Catherine Richards and Patricia Richards Tebeau; and her brother-in-law, Larry Tebeau. She was preceded in death by her brother Randall Richards in 2008.
A memorial celebration is being planned for later this year.