Mary Louise Page Richardson was a generous-spirited woman who pursued her goals with determination.

"Anything she did, she did well. She was serious about what she did," said a sister, Virginia Perram of Royal Oak, Md.

Mrs. Richardson worked as a window designer at Woodward & Lothrop department store in Washington after earning a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1949 from the Women's Division of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, now Radford University.

When the Navy was recruiting women, her mother encouraged her to join. She was commissioned an ensign in the Naval Reserve in 1953. She spent 13 years on active duty, serving in Norfolk, Lakehurst, N.J., Pearl Harbor and at the Pentagon.

Leaving the Navy as a lieutenant in 1966, she worked as a communications specialist at the Naval Telecommunications Command in Washington, where she retired in 1986.

Mrs. Richardson will be remembered at a memorial service today, Saturday, at 10 a.m. at Prestwould Plantation in Clarksville, where she was a longtime volunteer.

The 80-year-old Clarksville resident died June 10 at an Easton, Md., hospice after a lengthy bout with cancer.

She moved to Clarksville in 1987 and became a volunteer docent at Prestwould Plantation, a Georgian manor completed in 1795 that was home of Sir Peyton Skipwith and his wife, Lady Jean Skipwith.

"She had a first-class mind. She understood the historical significance of the objects of material culture at the site," said Julian D. Hudson, president and CEO of the Prestwould Foundation.

"She knew how to present them in the developmental period of the house. Her presentation was over and beyond anything anyone else has ever done. She worked as a docent for more than 20 years. She was the best interpreter I had."

Mrs. Richardson also had served as secretary and trustee of the Prestwould Foundation.

She was a member of St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in Clarksville.

An animal lover, she had rescued many lost or abandoned animals and found them homes.

She was the widow of Homer Shelton Richardson, who died in 2003.

Survivors include two more sisters, Jane Tibbitts and Joyce Robb, both of Eugene, Ore.