Stories, Songs & Lessons

Richard was a risk taker and creative problem solver who inspired many people to test their limits and live their ideals. When people pitched ideas to him, his typical response was "why not?" When he hired people, he trusted them to make good decisions and supported them in making "good trouble", to quote John Lewis, a civil rights leader he admired.

He once fulfilled a boyhood dream by buying a fire engine that was being retired from service in Nelson, NH — why not? When he got stopped by the police while driving it to Interlocken without the proper certification, he said it was a fourth birthday present for his daughter and they let him go, saying "don't let us find you driving this on public roads again!" It became a fascinating playground for campers.

Born at the Newton Wellesley hospital on April 15, 1938, Richard was a Tax Day baby for his parents Shepard and Eunice Herman (née Finkelstein) and big brother Bob. He loved growing up in the Jewish community of Eastbourne Road in Newton Center with his kindergarten friends Merrill Berman and Larry Sherman. They were an unstoppable trio who stayed friends throughout their lives.

Richard attended the Ward School, Weeks Junior High, and Newton High School before earning a bachelor's degree from UMass Amherst, and a master's in counseling from Northeastern University. He taught school and worked as a guidance counselor in Sherborn, Malden and Newton MA. During a junior year abroad at the Scandinavian Seminar for Cultural Studies at the International School, Elsinore, Denmark, he was immersed in experiential education with diverse students of different backgrounds interlocking hands. This experience later inspired him to originate the name, Interlocken International Camp, in 1961. Interlocken's graphic emblem resembled campers' joined hands, interlocked in a circle. Indeed, six of the initial Interlocken campers were from families affiliated with the United Nations, and over the years counselors were drawn from every inhabited continent. Thomas Hines Sr. gave the 21-year-old Richard a loan on the property across the lake from his own summer camp and mentored him as a camp director. Richard's banjo playing, charisma, and adventurous spirit convinced the parents of 35 boys to let them go with the young hippie into the wilderness of Windsor, NH.

Richard met his first wife Susan Herman (née Goldsmith) at UMass and together they created a magical place for children, young adults, and even grownups. He brought together, influenced, and inspired thousands of people from around the world of different religions, races, and incomes. Under his leadership, the Interlocken campers of the early 1960s collected money to bring three black boys to camp from Meridian, Mississippi during the height of the civil rights movement. This effort turned into the Educational Opportunities Fund, which still sends low-income campers to summer programs under the guidance of Richard's younger daughter Sarah.

So many people loved being part of the bubble of Interlocken, Crossroads, and Liberty Farm, that in 1980 the Chinese government invited Richard to create a "demonstration summer camp" in Beijing. He and a dedicated set of camp staffers brought 100 American students and counselors, who were met by 100 Chinese students and counselors under the close supervision of the Communist Party. Richard later replicated this program in the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Israel/Palestine with the goal of creating friendships among people with radically different perspectives.

Richard and Susan raised three children at camp: Melissa (married to Michael, parents to Felix, Simon, and Miriam), Tom (married to Laura, parents to Tianna, Joshua, Elizabeth, and Anna), and Sarah, who parented all the campers after Richard stepped back from directing the camp full time.

Although he rarely had time for vacations, there were times before the age of cell phones when Richard took family along on recruitment and program set-up trips in foreign places. His favorite beach activity was helping the kids to build a sand castle with carefully sculpted tracks and tunnels around it, then dropping a rubber ball in at the top and watching it go through and down to the sea.

Richard served two terms in the New Hampshire Legislature representing Windsor, Hillsborough, and Deering. During his time in Concord, he led the House with his banjo in a bipartisan rendition of the New Hampshire state song, Purple Lilacs.

Richard's second marriage to Paula Rayman brought a partner committed to peace and folk music, and the opportunity to enjoy Paula's children and eventually grandchildren: Alyssa (Corey, parents to Robbie and Sagan) and Lily (Diego, parents to Shayla and Rusty). He enjoyed spending weeks in Wellfleet, volunteering to teach business at the prison in Concord, MA, and attending peace rallies and concerts. He served on Barack Obama's US Presidential Scholars Commission.

Richard loved playing folk music on the banjo, accordion, guitar, and piano. One of his guiding stars in life was Pete Seeger, whose political change and social justice oriented music inspired Richard to play the 5-string banjo — including having a few lessons from Pete — sing, and discover the rich world of multicultural music, dance and social movements for peace around the globe. Richard was drawn to adventures and built one of the first ropes courses at a summer camp. In a similar risky vein, he aided and abetted the building of the lake launch, a sharply angled ramp at the pond's edge: campers would ride down the hill on a bicycle, carefully padded with life jackets, up the ramp, and then drop the bike while they sailed up and into the water. Since the insurance company never asked about lake launches, it wasn't a problem. Richard also championed the practice of "Magical Mystery Tours": dropping off a group of students and counselors in an unknown town for three days to make friends and find housing and food in exchange for whatever tasks needed to be done. Richard served on the boards of the NH Children's Alliance, Simon's Rock Early College of Bard, the New England Camp Association, and the Open House School & Summer Peace Program in Ramle, Israel.

Richard is survived by his wife Paula, his brother Bob and sister-in-law Susie, his nephews and nieces Peter, Carrie, Piper, Perry, Marina, Nicco, and Luca, and his children and grandchildren mentioned above.

Richard died in Watertown, MA of congestive heart failure.

My dad loved Bob Franke's question: What can you do with your days? And Franke's answer: Let your dreams bind your work to your play.

Franke thought folk songs should travel. Someone hears one, carries it somewhere new, changes it, and makes it their own. Dad's ideas were his folk songs. International Friendship Camp is a song he played many times. Sometimes at camp, he'd pull together the same band for multiple summers. Other times, when he played the song in Kenya, Israel, Russia, or the Caribbean, he'd pull together a new group of amazing musicians for the Friendship Camp Band. In Cuba, my sister Sarah added her harmony then made it her own. With each singing his ideas have left ripples in communities that last for generations.

Dad also carried other people's songs: Pete Seeger, Robert Frost, Dan Garvey and so many songs from around the campfire. He loved to see birches bend, his rambles brought joy, he enthusiastically struck the bell, he bubble, bubble, bubbled with enthusiasm for physical places that trigger unusually vivid memories: the pine grove, the deck, the bell tower, the tether ball court.

Those of us who were young adults still deciding what they might do with their lives when they met Dad tell the story of how he trusted them, gave them responsibility, encouraged them to take risks, helped them discover who they were and where they wanted to go in life. Educators. Adventurers. Entrepreneurs. Pilots.

Dad always had lots of ideas. Some were hairbrained and others were brilliant. One year the theatre festival at camp required like 10,000 paper garlands and someone asked the obvious question, "but who's going to make all the garlands?" That became a euphemism for all the detailed tasks required to execute his visions. It takes a lot of people to build a Teepee in the ball field up which Bilbo Baggins will climb in a theater festival. Artists, ropes course engineers, pyrotechnicians and a mighty director to ensure everything safely went up in flames when they met the dragon. And there's a lot of garlands to be made when one day he decides to bring 100 American children to China to live together with 100 Chinese kids in a summer camp. Amie Hill, the camp art teacher for years, illustrated actual garlands that hung in the office bathroom for decades with the caption "But who's going to make all the garlands...?" It seems someone always did, and the festival or adventure was almost always a success.

And then these educators, adventurers, and entrepreneurs went on to make their own garlands. Danny English's observation captures this when he said, "People carry Richard's spirit into their work, communities, relationships and dreams."

And these young people have come back from around the world with their children to ensure they too learn of the Blue Heron on Black Pond. They come to vicariously gift their children a month of youth in the bubble, a lesson on super clean up, hot-rodicus, Andy Upton ice cream, and Sunday morning meetings in the red pine forest. These are his multi-generational songs.

Many of you have reminded me of crazy Cessna flights you had with Dad. He was a risk taker, but I'd like to think a calculated risk taker. He'd fly to Provincetown, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, apparently in snow storms, landing on mountain tops and in fields. Once, he and I did fly to the Bahamas to visit Interlocken staff teaching at the Island School. Flying out over the Bimini VOR in the Atlantic Ocean was the only time we flew out of sight of land. We brought lifejackets, just in case, and it was a great adventure.

And so what would dad suggest we do with our days?

Work, hope, teach our children well, feed them on our dreams. Learn through doing. Peace through friendship. Plant seeds. Fly.

And leave songs behind for other people to sing.

Thinking about Richard over the past couple of weeks as all the well-deserved tributes continue to flow in. He was a pioneer who was a product of his time and simultaneously ahead of his time. I remember so clearly that evening 65 years ago when he came to my parents’ house in Newton with his banjo and a set of slides that showed what the camp might look like during the summer ahead. For some reason, my parents took a chance, and it changed our lives.

As with many people in future years and as Richard himself when he was growing up, we had not been exposed to diversity. Suddenly, there I was in Cabin one with René Arlain from Brooklyn, Frank Chu from Manhattan, and Nick Howe, a counselor who lived in the mountains of New Hampshire.

That was the beginning of a new chapter in my life, and it was Richard’s inspiration and follow-through and a heavy dose of good luck that set a course for me as a camper, counselor, trip-leader, teacher and school administrator. Even more importantly, it led to building a sustaining and loving family and extended family.

Dick and Susan Herman and Interlocken International Camp for Boys exposed this sports-loving teenager to civil rights and folk music, wilderness camping and the natural world, and the ideals of living in a community defined by mutual support, inclusion, adventure, risk-taking, accountability, and love.

Dick, the mentor, ultimately became Richard, the good friend, and there are many slides that tell the story (no website in the ‘60s and ‘70s and some of the images are fuzzy because they were before my time).

• Dick, the student and part of the Berman, Sherman and Herman troika. • Dick, the Boy Scout at Philmont exploring the Southwest. • Dick, the counselor at Camp Kirkland learning from Joel Wolfson. • Denmark, a break from college, and meeting Aage Rosendal Nielsen through the Scandinavian Seminar. • Dick, the dreamer, coming up with the idea of Interlocken, meeting Tom Hines, and convincing others to join him. • Dick, the partner, with Susan joining him both in marriage and business – I remember many evenings at 25 Bowen Street in Newton Center as ideas turned into reality. • Richard, always running from one place to another, sometimes with the fogger in the tent unit, and trading running for horseback riding on Paul Bunyan Day. • June, 1967 – Richard, the father and the first Crossroads adventure – Melissa, Tom and Sarah and the next generation ultimately deserve a unique set of slides as they become the center of Richard and Susan’s life. Crossroads, too, has its own story as it spreads the core of Interlocken’s philosophy. • Richard, the builder, expanding the dining hall (that’s symbolic) with support from brother Bob, nephew Peter, and Bob Cleland and Peter Jordan. • Richard and Susan, Roy and Maggie, BaWin and Judith, Trim and I along with many others over the years celebrating New Years with a campfire on the ice, songs by the fireplace, and a day of cross-country skiing culminating with the Wins’ “cannibal pot”. • Richard, the singer and banjo player, in the days when “Cum-by-yah” and “Down by the Riverside” and “The ink is black…” complemented “Long John” and “Purple Lilacs”. • Richard, the ping-pong player whose style evoked that of our parents playing in the basement. • Richard, the Justice of the Peace, who married Trim and me in the Pine Grove – our second ceremony, his first of many. • Richard, the pilot, surveying his land from up above.

There are certainly many more images from recent times (the past 30 years), culminating in his marriage to Paula and the time they spent together traveling and living in Watertown and Florida. I leave those to others and close with the image of him and me in “Dwight’s Delight”, an old and semi-reliable automobile bushwacking its way down to Bagley Pond in 1968. That led to one more dream of both community and natural wonder, a dream that Richard enjoyed and partially realized, a dream that is now passed on to the next generation.

Today was Sunday Morning Meeting here at camp. At the end we played Give Yourself to Love, then Old Blue Heron, before kids moved onto the deck for brunch. A few campers and staff stayed behind to listen to camp songs — Circle Game, I'll Fly Away, Iowa. And as the last song played, a blue heron flew past the amphitheater in front of us, as if Richard was stopping to say hello.

There are so many. But I remember singing old seafaring and drinking ballads with gleeful abandon — Fathom the Bowl, The Barley Mow, Strike the Bell. I remember one fine day at the waterfront, Richard and Roberge and I singing Pay Me, You Owe Me, creating verses as we went. Also By the Waters of Babylon — I remember singing it with him in the sauna on a cold night in October after we'd finished an environmental ed group. I don't remember who else was with us, but I recall singing in the dark, with everyone trying to find harmonies, and the sauna resonating magically.

A personal note: my own song, The Piper, came from a dream I had once, midwinter, after I'd moved to Boston. In the dream, Richard was saying it was time to go to camp, and I replied "You're a regular Pied Piper, aren't you!"

Dear friend, your efforts flourish in my life every day. As a younger Black male from a very underserved community of Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana, it was not until I became staff at Windsor that I was able to truly develop a worldview, lifelong friends, and experience what the potential to live in harmony globally would feel like if the world only knew. Rest accomplished, Mr. Richard.

Recently I was telling my husband about camp, including the bike ramp and how the winner of the egg drop would get the reward of a final test out of Herman's plane. After sharing that, my adult brain thought, "surely that didn't happen." Reading this, it's touching to see it was part of a lifetime of "good trouble." What an incredible life to have lived. I can smell the pine and hear his banjo to this day.

I had the privilege of sitting with him Thursday night and Friday morning. I had my guitar and sang camp songs and Robert Frost poems and held his hand. It was peaceful. At some point in the hot Boston summer, "The Pronouncer" arrived in his black Tundra truck and recorded the death. It made me think of the Frost poem Departmental. And having spent most of the day climbing on Cathedral Ledge with my 17 year old son Josh, it made me teary to sing Cats in the Cradle.

As shared at dad's memorial in Watertown: Hi, I’m Sarah. Sister to Melissa and Tom. Richard’s youngest. These past few weeks while dad’s health was rocky, he and Paula received a steady flow of heartfelt messages. You can imagine him being open hearted and grateful as he received each poem, song, and letter. Thank you, and thank you for joining us today to help us celebrate dad’s 88 years of life. Most of us know Richard as a gregarious, banjo strumming folk singer with a resonant voice. He combined his passion for having been a Boy Scout -- an Eagle Scout, even -- and experiential education -- with an appreciation for cultural exchange, celebrating differences, and promoting understanding among people from different backgrounds, walks of life, and corners of the globe. We will always be able to vividly imagine him singing with contagious enthusiasm - in the pine grove at camp … I wanna wake up in the morning, where the purple lilacs grow…. Or Strike the Bell 2nd mate… or the Ink is Black, the page is white - together we learn to read and write…. In a text exchange last week, a family friend mused… “Think about how far ahead of the curve he was - how naturally it came to him to join love of music, nature, compassion, criticality of conversation, basic humanity that needs to be awakened and kept alive through experience … Crossroads and Interlocken basecamp -- and your father -- taught me about the need to reflect humanity through action and respect.” Clearly - dad’s life was one well spent. We have thousands of such personal stories about him. Each poignant. That friend was part of an enormous community created by dad and mom that lives on, and is a tribute to the two of them. Children, and grandchildren of campers; campers who became counselors; staff who met, married and sent their children to camp; and people who joined and led travel programs - a veritable army of devotees whose lives were changed by the camp, and by my father. Tom, Melissa and I know Richard as a father – who, together with mom, was very busy building a dream. Building the camp and its programs as a world for all of us. We lived at camp – year-round. Through the colorful bustle of summer, crunchy leaves of fall, the snowflake quiet of winter and the mud, blackflies, horseflies and mosquitoes of budding spring. Remote is an apt word to describe it, particularly when camp was closed for the season. Perhaps even “very remote!”….. And so, particularly during my 8th grade year when dad and I lived at camp alone, I grew up on a steady dose of NPR on the LONG ride to school. I knew we were right on schedule when, as we approached the town of Antrim, the North Branch River on the right hand side, Robert J Lurksumer came on the radio and introduced Music in the Morning in a velvety voice. It was our cue to turn the radio up full volume – The program began with a minute of bird song that faded into an hour of classical music. It was the bird sounds intro that was so memorable and fun - the birds SCREECHING through the speakers - and dad and I would imagine, for a quick minute, that we were in a rainforest or jungle. It felt exciting, adventurous, and special. I work at a school now. Our Sisters’ School. I love it. Dad loved it too, and would eagerly read every OSS publication, and then call me on the phone to tell me how much he enjoyed it, and that the work we do at the school is an inspiration. I always valued his opinion, and appreciated his unfettered enthusiasm and support. It’s no surprise that part of my vision for Our Sisters’ School is for students to feel as inspired by a middle school experience as they can be by a powerful summer camp experience! It’s no surprise that he will remain present in my mind, when I’m at school. Dad sent generous contributions to OSS and to the Educational Opportunities Fund, even when it was a stretch for him financially. But it felt really important to him, which also made me feel proud and grateful. I want to finish by sharing some of dad’s particularly sage advice. A familiar mantra was, ”That’s a good problem,” which sums up his approach to life. And one time, when I was frustrated with childhood friends, he told me, “The friendships you make when you are young are not replaceable. Treasure them and treat them with care.” He did, and I have; so many of us have. And here we are together, in friendship, remembering Richard and everything he stood for.

Here's a copy of a letter I wrote to Richard during his final days.

Dear Richard, This is Ben Goldsmith, the son of Peter Goldsmith. It’s been a while. I’ve been thinking of you lately and the impact you’ve had on me and my family.

I think of Interlocken as integral to the core of my being, and I think it was integral to Peter’s as well. You created something extremely special, and its effects noticeably ripple out across generations. That’s best felt in the role music plays in my life. It seems music was woven into the fabric of Interlocken. It wasn’t an afterthought; it was the core of the experience. Through music, community was created. The sharing of songs often felt spiritual—and I’m not a spiritual person, but I can recount the magic of morning meetings, campfire singalongs, and the red pine forest. I know my dad experienced this and brought this music-driven sense of community wherever he went. I think creating community experiences was a core of his ethos in his professional career as a college dean.

I’m attempting to recreate that feeling in my adult life—although I must say, it’s much more difficult to do without a sacred space in southern New Hampshire! Nonetheless, I try to bring people together in a singalong whenever possible. My favorite nights have ended with friends at my house in front of a roaring fireplace, gathered around a piano and singing pop songs. And as I get older, I’m starting to become more intentional with how music plays a role in my life. I’m rediscovering the joy of singing, performance, and community. And those roots come from Interlocken.

I think it was my third summer at Interlocken—2001, with me at 11 in cabin 3—in which I started to take up the bass and you and I connected a lot more. I spent many free periods with you on the deck, playing with you and making a big dent in your copy of Rise Up Singing. I found my confidence in a musician that summer, and really learned to play by ear. At that age, I was starting to become aware of how I could contribute to the community with my own playing and voice. I’m so glad we got to share that time together.

After my dad died you would, from time to time, call me Peter by mistake. At first this was a bit jarring, but I learned to appreciate it. I enjoyed channeling this part of him into the camp space through music. It was an honor to carry a piece of him throughout my Interlocken experience.

Now, a confession: I’m not sure how this happened, but I seem to be in possession of a copy of Rise Up Singing in which “Richard Herman” is clearly written in sharpie on the front page. I think it ended up on my person by accident, but I certainly made no effort to return it to you. It feels like something of a holy text—and there’s that spiritual language creeping up again, but it’s difficult to shake that when thinking of summer camp memories. I’ve shared songs from that book with many friends, my sister Joanna, and her kids, and I’m proud to keep it on my piano at all times. I assume you’ve acquired a new copy by now, so with your permission, I’d like to hold onto mine.

Richard, thank you for all the work and love and care into the communities you’ve fostered. I think your legacy will be felt for generations.

Strike the bell, Great Blue Heron. With love, Ben Goldsmith