June 30, 1930 – February 6, 2026
Mary Rita Sampson (née Landry) passed away peacefully at age 95 on Feb 6, 2026, at home with family. Always known as Rita, she was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota on June 30, 1930, to Alice (née Peterson) and John Landry, the fourth child of five, all of whom she outlived. She was proud of her Swedish and French immigrant heritage, especially the early arrival of the Landrys to what is now Nova Scotia in 1642.
She attended Basilica Grade School and then St. Margaret’s academy for high school. In her youth, she enjoyed ice skating and basketball, and had a deep love and sensitivity for animals of all kinds. In an early example she would rescue frogs from window wells at school, once hiding a few of them in her sister’s closet for what she thought would make a “delightful surprise.” Her sister’s scream made it clear she didn’t share the same interest in frogs.
Rita later studied nursing and became a registered nurse in Minnesota. Soon after, she met and married Robert Legere and moved with him to Los Angeles, where they bought and operated the Honey Dew Doughnut Shop in San Gabriel. There, they had a son, Robert Terry, but the union did not last. She and her young son moved back to Minnesota to be near her siblings and parents, and to resume her nursing career at Minneapolis General.
There she met Wallace Sampson, a young MD who was completing his internship. Wally was drafted into the military, and was sent to boot camp in Fort Sam Houston, Texas. While there, Wally and Rita married and then were transferred to Frankfurt, Germany, where son Paul was born in 1957.
After Wally completed his military service, the family moved back to Los Angeles for Wally’s residency at Harbor General. Three more sons, Charles (Buck), Daniel, and David were born in quick succession.
Now, with five sons in tow, they moved to Los Altos, California, where they remained until Wally’s passing in 2015. Rita stayed home to raise her sons until the youngest child started school, after which she went back to nursing, this time in the psychiatric ward of El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, California. It was this work that piqued her interest in psychotherapy, and she was fortunate to work with some of the pioneers of group therapy in Palo Alto, and at the Esalen Institute in Monterey. Rita used this newfound knowledge in her role as Head Nurse to begin regular group therapy sessions with psychiatric patients at El Camino, and developed enough trust with the medical staff that she was allowed to develop alternative methods for treatment, such as massage accompanied by strongly evocative music such as classical orchestral pieces, and 1970s Pink Floyd.
True to her adventurous nature, Rita became interested in the music and art that flourished in late ‘60’s San Francisco. She and Wally took the boys to multiple now-legendary Bill Graham shows at the Fillmore Auditorium and Winterland Ballroom. The family became very early members of the Jefferson Airplane Fan Club, and she and Wally supported and volunteered at Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic, where they donated their old Peugeot station wagon to become the clinic’s ambulance. They raised the boys to appreciate all kinds of music, and their home was often filled with the sounds of Bob Dylan, The Band, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Simon and Garfunkel, the Moody Blues, and, of course, the Jefferson Airplane.
She also retained her love of animals, and imparted the same to her boys. The house at times contained a menagerie that included multiple dogs, cats, guinea pigs, snakes, and Horatio, a loquacious mynah bird whose true gender was revealed at age ten, when he laid an egg. Her kindness and generosity extended to people as well, and over the years she took in several who needed a place to live, and welcomed them into the home with the family.
Rita’s ability to run a hospital nursing unit that was one of the first to adopt computer systems for medical records and patient management led to a second career as a Systems Analyst for several companies. After the boys had grown, she went back to school to obtain a degree in Information Systems at the University of San Francisco, and her job required her to travel extensively, including an assignment that had her living in Saudi Arabia for the better part of a year.
After retirement, she spent much of her life traveling with Wally, especially enjoying international cruises, and often inviting her sons and their families to join in these travels. She was devoted to family, and loved to cook, and was always the nexus of family gatherings, especially after moving to Aptos, CA, where several of her sons had settled to raise their own families. She lived a long and wonderful life, and left a legacy of kindness and thoughtfulness that affected the many people she met in her life. She is survived by sons Robert, Paul (Suzanne), Buck (Kathryn), Dan (Dolores), and David, and grandchildren Peter, Rachel, Julia, Annie, Lorenzo, Lila, Rebecca, Maya, and Rylan. Donations in her name can be made to the Santa Cruz SPCA or Second Harvest Food Bank.
