Marjorie Williams

Born Marjorie Bernetta on Jan. 24, 1932, in Miami, FL., she was the beloved daughter of Emmitt Olin and Florence Taylor Huff. At the hospital, someone asked if she was a “Yankee” since her mother was from Pittsburgh. Her paternal grandfather, a longtime resident of Georgia, proudly said she was a “Dixie girl.” The nickname stuck.

Her life was a true adventure, as she was a witness to history. Entering the world during the Great Depression, her father was a football coach at the University of Miami (Florida) and her mother was a PE/gym teacher at Coral Gables High School. Soon her father, a Riverdale Military Academy graduate, was called to duty, serving as an Army officer. Thus, the family moved more than 12 times, from the East Coast to the West Coast, considering her hometown as Greenwood, SC. Her childhood spanned the Depression through World War II to the Korean War.

Less than a year after the end of World War II, her father was posted as the Provost Marshall, U.S. Forces in Berlin, Germany. Her high school class picture was in front of the war-damaged Brandenburg Gate. She was only 16 years old when she graduated from Thomas A. Roberts School -- meeting two lifelong friends on the cruise across to Hamburg, Germany. Just as the Berlin Blockade/Airlift was beginning in 1948, she left for Stephens College in Columbia, MO and onto Syracuse University in Syracuse, NY. She received her Bachelor`s Degree in 1952.

Dixie worked for several years as an elementary school teacher in Ft. Meade, MD where her father was stationed. While there, she met a handsome Army aviator, Robert (Bob) M. Williams. He asked her to marry him on the second date, and they eventually married on Aug. 24, 1957, under the “Arch of Sabers” at the chapel at Ft. Meade. Their ride to the reception was on a flatbed in Bob’s helicopter. A devoted mother of three, she managed her family moves from Maryland, Germany, Florida (twice for Bob’s two tours of Vietnam), Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama (twice), South Carolina and Missouri. She packed and unpacked the family 11 times while Bob served as a military officer and three more times in civilian life. Bob and Dixie came to Dunwoody, GA in 1981 -- 43 years ago. The longest she had lived in one place was five years.

While she was done with military-moving, Dixie did not get enough traveling as an Army brat and Army wife. She and Bob traveled extensively through the U.S., Mexico, Europe and Asia – numerous family trips with all three of their children and three grandchildren; as well as visiting their daughter in London and Europe, and then Malaysia and Singapore regularly. They were bigtime “cruisers”; passed through the Panama Canal, around Cape Horn and down the Volga River, to name several.

Besides her family, she also had a deep affection for her dogs -- Sissie, Poochie, Candy, Butterscotch and Boosie. Dixie was an avid bridge player. She liked “party bridge” as she called it. However, Dixie came into her own as an amazing duplicate bridge player over the decades. She was sharp-as-a-tack, and her passion became her friends around the tables. Dixie came in high-score for her last bridge outing just 6 short weeks before she died.

Dixie was a force of nature. A true fighter, beating three types of cancer, surviving 19 years after her first lung cancer diagnosis. An inspiration to all. Kind and friendly with a voracious appetite for life. She never met a stranger.

She is survived by her husband, Robert (Bob) M. Williams; son, Robert (Bobby) M. Williams, Jr. and daughter-in-law Connie of Brentwood, TN; grandsons Collin Williams (Ashlie) of Saudi Arabia and Grant Williams of Decatur GA, daughter, Sally Buglass of Dunwoody; grandson, Scott Buglass, Seattle WA, and daughter, Sousa Williams and partner, Lori Kendrick of Berlin, CT.

She will be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. to be near her mother and father buried there; and patiently waiting for her husband, Bob of 67 years to join her.

Memorial contributions may be made in Dixie’s name to the Alzheimer’s Association of Georgia, https://www.alz.org/georgia?form=FUNSETYDEFK.

A Celebration of a Life Well Lived for Dixie Williams will take place Sept. 28, 2024 from noon to 4 p.m. at the Donaldson-Bannister Farm, 4831 Chamblee Dunwoody Rd.