On Friday, April 17, 2026, Romeo lost one of its finest storytellers - Richard Beringer. For decades, he was a trustee and a museum curator at the Romeo Historical Society. He contributed to The Romeo Observer with the "Reminiscence, files from The Romeo Observer" column for at least 15 years until the newspaper folded in 2015 and to The Record with the "Our Past: People, Places, & Things" articles since its second issue. I asked his wife Joan for permission to write this story, which she granted.
I've had the pleasure of knowing Richard since I assumed the Archivist position at the Romeo District Library in 2022. In my first few months, I reached out to Richard to see what the Romeo Historical Society had. On one evening, he took me to the Romeo Arts and Archive Center on North Main Street and to the Bancroft-Stranahan Museum on Church Street. I could immediately tell how much he loved to share Romeo's history. As Lawrence Sobczak noted in his article "Remembering Richard Beringer" in The Record, that passion for history has been with him since he was a child.
The first time Richard appeared in a Romeo newspaper was with the Romeo Historical Society. In 1988, Romeo Observer News Editor Donna Abernathy wrote an article about the organization entitled, "Preserving the past: Romeo Historical Society members protect the legacy of our forebears" for the January 20th edition. She wrote about what they were doing to safeguard the history of the Romeo community. This was all the more important since the village's 150th Anniversary was coming up in March of that year. In the story itself, Abernathy mentioned that the society met every second Thursday at the Romeo Community Center on Morton Street. During those gatherings, they would talk about maintaining and restoring historic homes as well as share historical items that they found. The latter took the form of a "Show and Tell."
Abernathy took pictures of the objects shown at the January meeting, including the ones that Richard is holding in the photo above.
Now, if it were Richard's article, he would've had you wait until next week to find out what they are, but let's talk about them today. In his right hand, he has a large wooden fork that was "used to stir laundry steeping in a tub of scalding water."
The item in Richard's left hand is a small metal untensil that "held bits of soap and was swished through the water as the laundry process began."
Both objects were standard equipment for housewives before the age of automatic washing machines and were found in his mother-in-law's garage. The best part of this picture is the big grin on Richard's face. He knows that he found something special and wants to share them with everybody he meets.
This is the Richard I knew. He became excited whenever he talked about history, especially about houses, mills, barns, and transportation. Richard always looked forward to discussing the past.
The Romeo Community Archives will miss him dearly. Along with the Romeo Historical Society, we will ensure that his legacy is preserved.
RIP Richard Beringer 1946-2026
To learn more about Richard Beringer, you can contact the Romeo Community Archives at rca@romemodistrictlibrary.org or call (586) 690-4890 as well as the Romeo Historical Society at rhs@romeohistoricalsociety.org or call (586) 752-4111. If you want to search for articles on that topic, you can find the Romeo newspapers like The Romeo Observer on the Suburban Library Cooperative's Local History Digital Collection website.
Images and sources courtesy of the Romeo Community Archives; Melvin E. and Joan D. Bleich Collection, The Romeo Observer, January 20, 1988, p.1-B and The Record, April 22-28, 2026 p.3-4