Joanne Williams

Joanne Seavey Parsons Williams, 87, mercifully passed away on Sunday, July 31, 2022. She was born in New London, Connecticut, on September 18, 1934, to William Seavey Parsons and Caroline Goodwin Brock Parsons. Joanne was a wonderful storyteller. Several years ago, she wrote down her life’s memories and gave them to her sons to pass along to their children and grandchildren. This obituary includes just a tip of the iceberg of the stories from this treasure.

Some of Joanne’s best-loved stories were centered around her fascinating adventures with her brother Bill as well-loved children of their career naval officer father they affectionately called “Big Daddy,” and their mother, they affectionately called “Cuddie.” Joanne described Big Daddy as a “handsome intellectual who learned and studied all of his life, yet was a great romantic, writing poetry while at the Naval Academy and during his first few years at sea.” She described Cuddie as “beautiful and charming to all she met” and how she loved to “dance and entertain.” Joanne delightfully displayed many of these same traits to those who knew her well.

Joanne and her parents moved from her birthplace in Connecticut to Annapolis, Maryland, in 1935, where her Daddy did his post-graduate work. Joanne was baptized in the beautiful Naval Academy Chapel. From there, they moved to Berkeley, California, where her father continued his post graduate work. At the age of 3-½, Joanne, Big Daddy and Cuddie set sail to China, arriving in Shanghai in July 1938. It was here that Joanne had her first clear memories of watching “huge, beautiful snowflakes” falling outside the window of their high-rise hotel which housed the naval officers’ families. She also had vivid memories of eating with her amah, the Chinese word for nursemaid, Tre Yin, and the other naval families’ children on the top floor of the hotel.

After a brief time in Manilla, Philippines, they moved back to Shanghai when Joanne was 6 years old. It was here that Joanne recalled riding with Tre Yin in a rickshaw to and from the American University School each day when she was in first grade. In the winter of 1940, Joanne, Cuddie and Big Daddy moved to Honolulu, Hawaii, where Big Daddy was stationed at Pearl Harbor aboard a ship in Admiral Halsey’s fleet. Along with her memories of learning to hula dance and of the beautiful flowers, “especially hibiscus,” and the amazing view from Waikiki to the Diamond Head mountain. Joanne recalled clearly the Sunday morning of December 7, 1941. “I was dressed for Sunday School and went next door to show our neighbor my new bracelet. Cuddie came out the backdoor to the top of the stairs and called down to turn on the radio, the Japanese were bombing Pearl Harbor!” She recounted her feelings when she and Cuddie watched the dancing planes and black smoke in the sky. “That night we awoke to a loud explosion and thought the attack was beginning again. Until then I had not been afraid, but now I was. We later found out that the noise was a time bomb dropped in my schoolyard! My brother, Billy, was only six weeks old, and Cuddie would light a candle and warm up his bottle in the night. I followed her around clutching her nightgown.” It was a full ten days of apprehension, hope and dread before Big Daddy was finally able to let them know that his ship had been at sea during the attack and that he was safe. Joanne, Billy and Cuddie were evacuated from the island in February 1942, sailing to San Francisco. Their ship “was blacked out and surrounded by war ships.” Joanne remembers “how we played games and helped with the babies and younger children on board the ship.” Afterward Joanne, Cuddie and Billy stayed with Joanne’s much loved Grandmother, Rebecca Brock, in Montgomery, Alabama, where she completed 2nd grade. Joanne recalled happy times here with her Grandmother and cousins. Joanne then moved with her family to Arlington, VA, for several years where they lived in a modern apartment, and her Daddy taught at the War College.

Some of Joanne’s favorite stories centered around the time her Big Daddy was sent to the Canal Zone in Panama to be the Port Captain on the Atlantic side in June 1951. She recalls, “We lived in a big, tropical house facing the ocean on a palm-tree-lined street in Colon. Because of Daddy’s job, we were greeted and wined and dined, and the high school kids took me under their wing for a wonderful senior year at Cristobal High School. It was a small but wonderful school.”

In June 1956, Joanne graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Vanderbilt University. She loved her Vandy years and made life-long friends there. It was in 1955 when Joanne was home in New Orleans for the summer when she met Archie Campbell Williams, Jr. (Ace) on a blind date set up by one of her high school friends. Joanne described Ace as “very outgoing and a great conversationalist. He loved to talk sports and politics and loved to paint.” Ace had already graduated from UT Austin and served two years as a sergeant in the Army in Korea. At the time they met he was working as a purchasing agent for Freeport Sulfur Co. By the time the summer was over Ace and Joanne were planning to marry after she graduated the next summer. Ace wrote Joanne many letters that year which she continued to treasure.

Joanne and Ace were married on July 7, 1956, at the Naval chapel on the base in Algiers, New Orleans. She recalled how “the men wore white linen suits and her father wore his white dress uniform.” Their first home was an old apartment on the Esplanade in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Ace became very ill soon after they moved in with a rare case of typhus fever from which he recovered completely. Their first year she described how “Ace went to work every morning in his suit and hat, and I thought he was so cute!” Joanne worked in the New Orleans schools doing speech therapy. She described sitting on the balcony with friends eating boiled shrimp and having the record player turned up playing the 1812 Overture. After living only two months in a home Joanne and Ace bought in Algiers, Ace was transferred to Miami where he set up an office to handle shipping of materials to Cuba. They rented a little house on the island of Key Biscayne, in a “neighborhood of young couples who watched each others’ children and partied a lot on a budget.” She worked as a lip-reading teacher for hearing disabled children. Joanne recalled fondly the time Ace took her to Havana for the weekend after Fidel Castro had just taken over Cuba. Joanne and Ace returned to New Orleans after two years in Miami when the sulfur company had to be closed down in Cuba because of Castro’s takeover.

Joanne gave birth to Brock on May 30, 1958 in Miami. One of her stories was of the time Ace took care of their days-old baby Brock while she took a shower. When she came out of the shower she found Ace singing Brock songs from the musical “South Pacific.” Timothy Lamar was born on September 30, 1960, in New Orleans. There are renowned “Tim” stories that all of Joanne’s family and friends know by heart. Tim’s personality mirrors his dad’s in many ways. As Joanne put it, “Tim was born a tease.” After moving to Monroe in 1965, Joanne and Ace’s third son was born on January 22, 1965, after the family had moved into the house they built on Valencia Street. Joanne told how Ace and Colin shared a love of painting. Joanne recalled, “From the time Colin was two, they would paint together at a cardboard card table in the den. Eventually the table was covered with paint, and, deciding it looked like a Jackson Pollock painting, years later they framed and hung it up.” Joanne described raising her boys as “often exhausting and worrying but always fun and rewarding.”

After taking time off from teaching to be a full-time mother to her boys, Joanne began teaching school again when Colin was in first grade. She loved teaching third grade at Our Lady of Fatima. Joanne later taught middle school math for a year in the Monroe Public School District and then taught math at Lexington Elementary and Sallie Humble Elementary. Joanne often described her last several years of teaching as being in her “dream job,” as she taught math to gifted and talented students.

Joanne told countless stories of these years bringing up her sons in Monroe; of Neville football games, the boys playing sports, vacations to see “Granddaddy,” Ace’s father in Texas and to see Big Daddy and Cuddie in New Orleans, the adventures of Oliver their dog, Grace church stories, etc., etc. Although Joanne often said she had no musical talent, she loved music. She and Ace mostly enjoyed classical music and opera; her boys loved rock. She described many LOUD rock band practices in the den with all three boys going on to play in bands at times.

Sadly and unexpectedly, Ace died within a few days of his diagnosis of cancer on January 23, 1976, after 20 years of marriage. Joanne wrote in her memoir that “her biggest regret was that Ace did not live to see what fine young men the boys grew to be. They are all loving and giving, honest, hardworking, Christian men in whom I am so proud.” In the last sentence of Joanne’s memoir she wrote, “my life since Ace died has been lonely at times but mostly full of joy and fun, love, church, wonderful friends, traveling, music, tennis, bridge, puzzles and mahjong, exercise, theater, opera and Best of All, six beautiful, bright, loving grandchildren!!!” Joanne went back to school at NLU and received her Master of Ed. degree in 1978.

Joanne’s life after retirement in Monroe was full. She downsized to a light-filled, lovely home on Monteigne Circle with a patio porch swing and flowers she loved. She was known for her regular parties, especially her annual gumbo get together. Besides her active church life, she was a docent at the Biedenharn Museum, served as a board member of the Chennault Aviation Museum, and became a Court Appointed Student Advocate (CASA) and worked with troubled youth.

Joanne “adored” having her six grandchildren visit her, and she kept them busy! She always had fun planning their days in Monroe, full of cooking, art projects, movies, walks, swimming at the MAC, games, puzzles, needlepoint, paper dolls, and on and on. She had a way of working out how to get all her children and grandchildren together as often as possible which was not an easy task because of the distance in miles from each other and their busy lives. Miraculously only about one month before her death, Joanne was able to attend her first granddaughter’s (Emily’s) wedding, having good visits with, along with her children’s families, her nieces Caroline and Alice, who stayed with her at her apartment.

When Joanne was 84 she moved to Arlington, Texas, to be closer to her son Brock and his family. She moved into an independent living apartment in a retirement home there. Joanne made sure that her life was not going to stop at this point. She was an active member of her retirement community and made many friends. Most everyone knew Joanne because she seemed younger than most residents, and she made it her mission to get to know people and be on committees and stay active in her new community.

Joanne’s many friends and family members from various parts of her life were her lifeblood … they loved Joanne and she loved them. Joanne always made sure all of her friends who did not have family in town or who were unable to go to be with their families had a place to go for Thanksgiving and Christmas meals. They shared their faith, fun times, loss and just their everyday lives with each other. Her friends stayed in regular touch even after she moved to Texas and visited when they could. During Joanne’s terminal illness, she received many cards, letters, texts and voicemails from so many of her family and friends. This meant the world to her and her family during this difficult time.

Joanne was a faithful and active member of Grace Episcopal Church in Monroe. She loved Grace wholeheartedly, serving on the altar guild and other committees for many years. Joanne’s faith was her rock. She leaned into it after Ace died, when she had to make a new beginning and be completely there for her boys. She was strong and brave and just kept going because she knew that’s just what she had to do. Joanne wanted to deepen her knowledge of the Bible and her faith throughout her life, and put her faith in action. In her last days, Joanne made sure her family and friends knew that she had no fear of dying and assured them that she had lived a full and beautiful life.

Joanne is survived by her children; Brock, wife Kathryn and their children Emily, husband Harrison, and Evan; Tim, wife Cathy and their children Lamar, Marie, Benjamin and Barrett; and son Colin; her brother, Bill Parsons; and beloved nieces, nephews and cousins

A graveside service for family only will be held on August 13, 2022, at 9:30 A.M. at Mulhearn Memorial Park Cemetery, 623 US-80 East, Monroe, LA 71203; and a memorial/celebration of life service will be held at 11:00 A.M., August 13, 2022 at Grace Episcopal Church, 405 Glenmar Ave., Monroe, LA 71201, with Fr. Don Smith and Rev. Judy Tefteller officiating. The service will be livestreamed on the Grace Episcopal Church site on Facebook and will be available to download afterward.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to Grace Episcopal Church, 405 Glenmar Ave., Monroe, LA 71201. www.gracechurchmonroe.org

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