Margery Williams Adams

Margery Ann Williams was born on February 20, 1921, delivered by her father at home in the middle of a snowstorm in Worcester, MA to Elizabeth Taft and Dr. Frederick Williams. She died peacefully at her home in Charlotte on July 18, 2022 at the age of 101. She was predeceased by her brother, Gurdon Taft Williams; her sister, Amy Bess Williams Miller; and her husband, Dr. George Carlisle Adams.

She grew up in Worcester, MA, was educated at the Bancroft School, and spent her summers at her family’s beloved ‘camp’ on Nubanusit Lake in New Hampshire. She earned her BA from Smith College in 1942, and her MA and Ph.D. in Art History at Harvard University. In her senior year of college, she was recruited and trained to serve in the WAVES wartime intelligence effort as a code-breaker during World War II, unraveling the Japanese code, a task to which she was sworn to secrecy under penalty of death. After the war she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study Art History at the Sorbonne in Paris, she met her future husband Carlisle, who was teaching the newly conceived specialty of pediatrics at the University of Paris. They were married in 1952 and raised three sons in Charlotte. Carlisle never learned of her wartime assignment.

Margery taught Art History at Queens College (now Queens University). Throughout her life in Charlotte, she was active in the Mint Museum, cataloging their ceramics collection, editing the Journal of Studies of the Ceramic Circle of Charlotte, and helping organize the 1976 Wedgwood International Seminar hosted by the museum. Along with her husband, she was active in many cultural institutions in Charlotte, including the Charlotte Opera, Charlotte Symphony, and the University of North Carolina Botanical Gardens, where a Camellia Walk was dedicated in 2012 to honor their support over many years. She was an avid world traveler, occasionally stealing away from her traveling companions to don a pair of white gloves and turn the pages of ancient texts at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France. Crossword puzzles were her passion; she allowed herself only 12 minutes to solve them, a holdover from her code-breaker training days. She filled her own gardens with rare specimens of daffodils, camellias and other treasures. And like her flowers, one of her most attractive features was her beautiful reserve, to paraphrase Thoreau.

Her humor and infectious laugh will be greatly missed by her survivors, Dr. George Williams Adams (Deborah), of Holderness, NH, Dr. John Carlisle Adams (Cheryl) of Indian Trail, NC, and Robert Taft Adams (Karen) of Clear Lake, TX, along with eight grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.

There will be a private service and burial. Donations in her memory may be made in support of the Botanical gardens at UNCC (gardens.charlotte.edu), or the Mint Museum (mintmuseum.org).