Eloise Goode Williams

Hattiesburg, MS

Services for Eloise Josephine Goode Williams, 92, will be held Saturday, Dec. 29, at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Jackson, Miss. Visitation begins at 10 a.m. followed by the funeral service at 11 a.m. The Revs. Minka Sprague, Marian Fortner and Clay Lee will conduct the service. Interment will be in the church columbarium. Wright and Ferguson is handling arrangements.

Eloise died Friday, Dec. 21, 2012, at Wesley Medical Center in Hattiesburg, Miss., following a brief illness.

Eloise was born in southern Maryland, the third child of the late Dora Lyon Goode and Douglas F. Goode. She and her six sisters and brothers grew up on a tobacco farm on the Wicomico River in a town called Maddox, Md. She graduated from Margaret Brent High School in 1938 and moved on to the University of Maryland where she earned a nursing degree, graduating in 1943 with a specialty in operating room nursing.

Eloise was always moved by a desire to serve others. After graduation, she enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps at Fort Meade, Md., and went through additional training to join the U.S. Army’s 93rd General Hospital Unit. She and others in her unit sailed from New York on Feb. 22, 1944 to begin her service in World War II. The boat landed in Wales and she lived with families in the area until the Army hospital was completed. She attended classes to learn about life in a war zone and prepare further for her service.

Her overseas duty included service in hospitals located in Scotland and Malvern, Worcester and Cheltingham, England. She treated and cared for soldiers from many different battles on the continent but remembered especially caring for survivors from the Battle of the Bulge in late 1944 and early 1945. Following the German surrender in 1945, Eloise was sent to a hospital near Normandy Beach in France, then to a French hospital in Paris and finally to the American Memorial Hospital in Paris where she met Mickey Rooney and cared for Hugh Martin, co-author of “The Trolley Song,” made famous by Judy Garland in the 1944 movie “Meet Me in St. Louis.” She returned to the United States on a two-week sea voyage where she continued her nursing duties in the ship’s sick bay and arrived back home on New Year’s Day, 1946.

She returned to Fort Meade to continue her Army service and there she met Capt. Thomas K. Williams, Jr., a medical officer. She and Tommy married Aug. 29, 1947. Both separated from the Army in September of that year and began a life together that took them to Birmingham and Gadsden, Ala., and later to New Orleans, La., where both worked in hospitals and where their only daughter was born.

The family relocated to Jackson, Miss., where Tommy entered a private practice with Drs. R.C. O’Ferrall and Thomas J. Safley, and Eloise retired from nursing and began working and volunteering in other areas, including years and varied service with St. James’ Episcopal Church, medical auxiliaries, Jackson-area charities and organizations, social clubs and educational associations. She was coaxed out of retirement on several occasions to work with her husband in his practice and returned briefly to hospital nursing.

She enjoyed spending time with and caring for family and friends. She loved traveling for fun and for medical and National Guard gatherings with her husband. And she shared a special bond with a special group of people who played tennis together each week at River Hills Club, with those who lived on her dead-end street and with those long-time members of St. James’.

Eloise’s beloved Tommy died in 2006 just after the couple celebrated their 59th wedding anniversary. She was also preceded in death by her sisters Laura Kiel and Grace Thomfordt and brothers Warren Goode and Mac Goode.

Eloise moved to Hattiesburg in 2009 and at the time of her death was living with her daughter, Margaret, and her husband, Joe Clark, and granddaughter, Mary Peyton Clark. She is also survived by a brother, Douglas Goode, of Annapolis, Md., and a sister, Jean Stahl, of Lancaster, Pa., and a number of nieces and nephews.

The family requests memorials be made to St. James’ Episcopal Church, 3921 Oak Ridge Drive, Jackson, MS 39216, or to an animal rescue organization of your choice.