Born on February 27, 1918, in Lewiston, he prepared for college at Deering High School in Portland and became a member of Theta Delta Chi Fraternity at Bowdoin. Following his graduation in 1940, he entered the Yale University School of Medicine, from which he graduated in December of 1943. He interned in pediatrics at New Haven Hospital in Connecticut and then served in the U.S.Army Medical Corps as a captain on active duty from October of 1944 to June of 1946. He then interned at Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston, Mass., and was a resident at Boston Floating Hospital for a year before opening a pediatric practice in Natick, Mass., in 1948. He remained there for nearly 40 years, retiring in 1987. He was a school physician for several years in Natick, Dover-Sherborn, and Wellesley and was on staff at Leonard Morse Hospital, Framingham Union Hospital, Newton-Wellesley Hospital, and Children’s Hospital. A member of the Massachusetts Medical Society and the Natick Board of Health, he was also a member and deacon of the First Congregational Church of Natick, a member and president of the Natick Rotary Club, a Mason, and a Shriner. He was an incorporator and trustee of the Middlesex Savings Bank of Natick. Surviving are his wife, Myrtle von Haren Abbott, whom he married in 1944; three sons, Donald C. Abbott ’69 of Norton, Mass., Richard N. Abbott, Jr. ’71 of Boone, N.C., and Davis W. Abbott of Oakland, Calif.; a daughter, Anne A. Boyd ’79 of Gilmanton, N.H.; a brother, Charles L. Abbott ’47 of Beverly Hills, Fla.; and nine grandchildren.