Obit of Williams, Frances (w452) - Unknown County, Oklahoma Submitted by: Gene Phillips 18 Aug 2004 Return to Unknown County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/okstate.html ========================================================================== USGENWEB NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ========================================================================== FRANCES WILLIAMS Published on June 14, 2000 The Santa Rosa Press Democratt Frances J. Williams, a Sonoma County teacher for 30 years and a social worker during the Great Depression, was guided by a social conscience during her long and active life. Williams, a Sonoma County resident for 80 years and the mother of Santa Rosa philanthropist Connie Codding, died June 7 at the Windsor board and care home where she had resided for the past year. She was 94. "My mother definitely wasn't a stay-at-home mom. She was a woman ahead of her time and was always out in the forefront doing things to help people," said Connie Codding, also known for her dedication to causes aiding the poor and disadvantaged. Codding is the wife of Coddingtown developer Hugh Codding. Connie Codding remembers her mother as a woman who even in retirement would volunteer her teaching skills to female inmates at the Sonoma County Jail. At Thanksgiving she always prepared extra food and delivered it to a soup kitchen for the holiday meal. As a longtime Santa Rosa resident and active member of the First United Methodist Church, she started a project with fellow church women to furnish sewing supplies to women in the jail. Williams was born May Frances Jones on June 5, 1906, in Indian territory that is now Oklahoma. She was born on an Indian reservation where her father was a teacher, one year before Oklahoma became the 46th state. Her mother also was a teacher. The family moved to Sebastopol in 1920 and Williams graduated from Analy High School. Her family later settled in the Forestville area. She was one of the first graduates of Santa Rosa Junior College, attending classes in the Masonic Temple, which was used as a lecture hall for SRJC. Williams attended San Jose Teachers College, where she earned her teaching credential. After teaching for two years and finding many pupils with social problems, she went back to school herself, enrolling in the graduate program in the School of Social Work at the University of Oregon. "She decided to get training in social work because she saw a lot of problems with children in school and realized there was no one equipped to deal with those troubled children," said Codding. She was a social worker during the Great Depression. But her real love was teaching, and eventually she returned to the classroom. She taught at Windsor Elementary School in the early '50s, Forestville Elementary School from 1955 to 1960 and at Roseland school from 1962 until 1977. She continued as a substitute teacher until she retired in 1980 and devoted her time to volunteer work, friends and family. Williams was preceded in death by her husband, Robert Brindley Williams, and her two sons, Robert B. Williams and John E. Williams. In addition to her daughter and son-in-law, Connie and Hugh Codding, Williams is survived by her sister, Waunena Warren of Forestville; eight grandchildren; nine great-grandchildren; and three nieces. A memorial service will be at 2 p.m. Thursday at the Forestville United Methodist Church on Covey Road in Forestville. The family suggests memorial contributions to Santa Rosa Rescue Mission, P.O. Box 493, Santa Rosa 95402-0493, the First United Methodist Church, 1557 Montgomery Drive, Santa Rosa 95405 or the Forestville United Methodist Church Memorial Fund, P.O. Box 38, Forestville 95436. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to Unknown County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/okstate.html