The idea of writing about my husband Richard was somewhat daunting: How could I possibly come up with 1000 words about him? But as I started to reminisce and put together some notes, I came to realize that 1000 words would never be enough. Even I am surprised by the depth of this man, and I was only involved with him for the past 25 years. I totally missed the first 50!
Richard was raised in Reading, Pennsylvania, surrounded by a huge family of Krotts and Smiths. He terrorized his younger sister Linda and idolized his Uncle Ron, who lived with them for many years as did his Grandmother Smith. Grandmum would cook and clean for the family, while Mom did shift work as a seamstress in a clothing factory and Dad was a welder. Richard’s first job was in a soda company, bottling pop. He hunted and fished with his father and uncles, and some of his favorite memories were collecting coins and antique tools with his grandfather.
He was drafted at 18 and spent the next few years praying he would not get sent off to Vietnam. Somehow his prayers were answered when his orders were misplaced and, instead, he was discovered to be a tremendous marksman. He was placed on a competitive team, traveling the country shooting.
After his release from the military, Richard packed up his young bride and moved to Montana. He had been here with his two uncles when he was 12, and swore this was where he was going to live. He settled in Helena and began working for Morrison and Maierle as an engineer, drawing plans for bridges across Montana.
Eventually he left and opened the Inkspot Graphics Shop on the walking mall. There he got involved with local artists and collected much of their art and explored photography. His passion for many years was photographing gravesites and cemeteries. After the Inkspot, he opened the Made in Montana Store downtown, the first to be authorized to use that name. While there he met Clark Pyfer and they became fast friends and business partners. Together they purchased Reeder’s Alley, opened the very successful Stonehouse restaurant, and developed a wonderful line of Stonehouse sauces. The entrepreneur in him opened a mini theatre, a gift shop, an art shop, and a candy store in other vacant spaces in the Alley. All of those buildings were heated with electricity and eventually they sold it as the electric bills became more than they could handle.
Richard hunted and fished every nook and cranny around the state. He would pour over topographic maps for hours before heading into the woods. He loved to share stories of hiking into the backwoods for days, catching Golden trout, spotting grizzlies, and getting caught in terrifying electrical storms. He could tell you the names of each creek where he and his son Mike caught a fish in and every tree he hid behind to get that prize elk, moose, sheep or buffalo. His collection of guns just made him happy.
He loved to talk politics, history, and anything about Montana. Because he was such a promoter, he was asked to sit on the Governor’s Tourism Council and became executive director of the Rocky Mountain Trade Corridor, an international organization that assisted companies expanding their business to Canada and Mexico. He was an artist, a writer, published a coloring book for children about nurses, and republished a little-known book called, “Devil Man with a Gun.”
Richard and I met in 1997. I was the Canadian director for the Rocky Mountain Trade Corridor and was asked to come to Montana for a month to help with a conference. I fell in love with the boss and never went home.
The next year, while out for a drive, we found the ground that is now Tizer Botanic Gardens and Arboretum. Originally it was just one acre, a place for Richard to recover from prostate cancer and for us to get to know each other. It was certainly not meant to be a business. ButRichard was an avid reader and firmly believed that if you spent one hour a day studying something that you were interested in, you would be an expert within the year. And that is exactly what he did with trees. He loved trees — big, small, weeping, twisting, any color, any shape. My passion was perennials. We began gardening and clearing debris, and people started seeing the gardens and asking to come in. In time, the insurance company found out how many visitors we had and quadrupled our rates over night. We had a decision to make: Close the gates and not allow people to see the gardens or open them and behave like a business. The rest is history.
The two of us built our office together, put up a greenhouse and opened a small nursery — and Richard started talking trees! We converted our garage into a gift shop and began hosting events like the Fairy & Wizard Festival and High Tea. The harder we worked, the more we loved it!
We became a test garden for the Plant Select Program and then a Botanical Garden at the encouragement of members of the Denver Botanic Gardens. The All-American Selection Committee asked us to become a demonstration garden and then much to the delight of Richard, a Level 2 Internationally Accredited Arboretum. Then he went out an found us a grant which paid for a computer program to be designed so that we could computerize the woody plant materials that are in the garden. Richard became the “go-to tree guy” in the state. Need to know about a tree – go see Richard! He expanded his art on Facebook in recent years, writing hundreds of articles and thousands of photos on trees and plants. He had thousands of followers.
But wait – many people thought he was a dancer! One cannot talk about Richard Krott without talking about his dancing. The first day I arrived in Montana, he had me in dance classes, even though I was not supposed to be staying. If there was country music playing, Richard was dancing! After working 12 hours a day, he would get cleaned up and off we would go to dance. Generally, two nights a week and three when Alive @5 was on. People would ask me why I didn’t get upset when he danced with all those other women. Well, the reality was, as much as I loved to dance with him, I couldn’t keep up; he always wanted to dance every dance. And I always knew who he was coming home with.
He was a wonderful father, and his grandkids remember tractor rides, rockhounding, planting trees and building bridges and so much more. Someday, when his tree collection has grown up, people will marvel at his vision, his passion. Today, I just miss him — but I know that he is here with me every step of the way.
