Obituary of Jacqueline Owen Williams

Jacqueline Owen Williams, 85, passed away on Aug. 5 at her home in Melbourne, Fla. in the company of family. Her brief fight with bone cancer paled in comparison to the heartbreak over losing the love of her life of 64 years, her husband Dr. Thomas D. Williams III, who preceded her in death just three weeks earlier on July 13. That they are reunited now comforts her children and grandchildren. Her parents and siblings settled in the Orlando area and engaged in citrus farming long before Disney World and amusement parks turned central Florida into today’s tourism mecca. Jackie met her husband in college, the two dating when he was in dental school at Emory University in Georgia and her among the first Peace College transfers to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After graduation, she proudly served as a volunteer patient for his final dental board exams, allowing him to put in both an inlay and amalgam filling, which lasted a lifetime. Jackie and Tom married in 1953. They moved from Orlando to Cocoa Beach, Fla. in 1958. They watched – with their three children – the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space programs take flight nearby. When jalousie windows shook and the ground rumbled, it sent her dashing outside with her children to spy a spiraling spray and another miracle reaching for Heaven. Jackie served as a Cub Scout leader, joining the laughter and hi-jinx of rambunctious boys. That should have satisfied her, but she later took on herding Brownies and Girl Scouts. Jackie was among the original members of the Cape Canaveral Hospital Auxiliary – The Pink Ladies – who tended to the sick and their families. For several years, she served as that organization’s treasurer and spearheaded its annual fundraising events. Her husband well knew she took “in sickness and in health … till death do us part” passionately. As mothers go, she is remembered by her children as accepting – most likely looking the other way – their cosmically questionable decisions at times. She is remembered by her children for sticking with them through thick and thin. Again and again. A talented seamstress, Jackie was also a demon at cross-stitch, needlepoint and crochet, her hands helicoptering such projects as an entire and full-sized Winnie-the-Pooh menagerie of crochet characters for a grand-daughter, who stumbled across the patterns at Michael’s one day and declared: “I bet Ma-Ma could do this!” One curious grandson was fascinated by how, in her hands, an intricate series of tiny X’s seemed bereft when alone but in unison – stitched again and again – produced breath-taking murals. He asked her to show him how to stitch. And so she taught a young boy who would one day become a surgeon. One grandson, now an Engineer, remembers how his Ma-Ma drove from Cocoa Beach to Palm Bay on late afternoons after elementary school, knowing his reluctance to do his homework. Particularly math. And how Ma-Ma patiently presented those flash cards. “5 x 5 is what?” “3 x 7 is what?” “6 x 9 is what?” Again and again. Another grandson remembers Ma-Ma spending hours with him on the floor playing with twisted nail puzzles and other brain teasers. That boy too grew up to be an Engineer. Jackie’s youngest child Kim, now an accomplished pianist, remembers the hours of practice. She remembers how her mother set the egg-timer, sat alongside, and patiently instructed: “Top hand now…Bottom hand now…Both hands now.” Again and again. Jackie’s oldest son Tom remembers a proud mother attending an officer’s commissioning ceremony and attaching his Ensign shoulder boards. Only a small percentage of newly-minted Ensigns in the U.S. Navy go on to earn Captain and command a ship. Jackie’s son was among them. Her middle child Troy remembers clickety-clacking Royal and Underwood typewriters, his mother inspecting each fictional short story and clapping with glee – again and again – no matter how lame each story was. One day that little boy would become a writer. Jackie is survived by her brother Edward C. Owen of Georgia and is predeceased by another brother Millard F. Owen of Florida. She is survived by her three children: Thomas D. Williams IV, the oldest and a retired Captain in the U.S. Navy now living in Virginia Beach, Va; Kimberly Williams Kilgallin, the youngest and a Fairy Godmother In Training at Walt Disney World, now living in Winter Garden, Fla; and Edward Troy Williams, a newspaper journalist and writer living in Greensboro, N.C. She is survived by four grandchildren: Andrew Auld, a Mechanical Engineer living in Winter Garden, Fla.; Dr. Thomas Auld, in medical residency as an orthopedic surgeon at Rutgers University in Bloomfield, N.J.; Thomas D. Williams V, a Process Engineer living in Norfolk, Va.; and Stewart Rebecca Williams, a student at UNC-Greensboro, living in Greensboro, N.C. She is also survived by the spouses of her children: Rosemary Williams, wife of Thomas D. Williams IV, Bart Kilgallin, husband of Kimberly Williams Kilgallin, and Leslie Stewart Williams, wife of Edward Troy Williams. Jackie took great pride in the accomplishments of her family, as evidenced by the photos, magnets and bric-a-brac that adorn the kitchen refrigerator. That family will miss her again and again. A graveside service is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Friday, Aug. 11, at the Cape Canaveral National Cemetery in Mims, Fla.