Evadelle Haney Williams Medven was born in Dallas, TX, on January 22, 1934, and died on June 21, 2022, in the same house where she grew up. She was predeceased by her parents: David Ladelle (DL) Haney and Eva McLemore Haney; her high school sweetheart of 40 years, Walter Bryan Williams, Jr., and her second husband, Dr. Anton Medven.
She is survived by her three children: Linda Williams Jewell (husband Baylor Jewell, MD) of Baton Rouge, LA, Walter Bryan Williams, III (wife Annetta Templeton Williams) of Dallas, TX, and David Judson Williams of Phoenix, AZ. Her five grandchildren include David Zachary Williams of Phoenix, (the Quads) Abigail Thomas Jewell, Sarah Elizabeth Jewell, Katherine Grace Jewell of Baton Rouge, and PFC Baylor Looper Jewell, Jr. of Camp Geiger, NC. She is also survived by four first cousins: Robert Edward Shaw (wife Margaret) of Heath, TX, George Warren Shaw (wife Rhonda) of Duson, LA, Sara Elizabeth Hill Rogers (husband John) of Nashville, TN, and Jo Ann Hill Kemp (husband Steve) of Nashville, TN.
Evadelle enjoyed her childhood, playing with her best friends, Dawn and Joyce Simmer, down the street, reading every Nancy Drew mystery book, learning to play the accordion and taking ballet lessons. The gasoline rationing of WWII brought the fateful choice between getting to either ballet or accordion lessons, but not both. Her choice would impact her life some 50 years later (we’ll circle back to that!) . At Highland Park High School she managed to both graduate at the top of her class AND meet the love of her life, Walter Williams, on a blind date. After graduation, she joined Walter at Baylor University. After his graduation from Baylor, the now married couple moved to several small Texas towns where he was a HS band director and she was a homemaker and mother to Linda, then Bryan and finally David completed the family.
Somehow, while raising three kids, she also found time to be a Brownie leader, then a Girl scout leader (and kept the troop going for the two years after Linda went to LSU until the rest of the girls graduated!). And she was the Den Mother for Bryan’s Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. The garage was filled with scout tents, cooking gear, lanterns,and other camping equipment until moving forced a charitable donation ten years after David had graduated! (Did I mention that she had trouble letting go of anything that we MIGHT NEED later?) The seven-day wilderness canoe trip with Linda’s troop in northern Minnesota, the Big Bend camping trip with Bryan’s troop, those tents and packs had some miles on them! Every Friday night in the fall – FOOTBALL! You can’t have a HS football game without a marching band! We cheered for Daddy’s current school’s team, then his beloved band! Then throw in Linda’s drill team, Bryan’s band (super flutist!), then David’s band (French horn), the church choir, handbell choir and other kid’s activities, she still found time to be the Avon Lady in our neighborhood.
There is still the black plastic sign from the 60’s by the kitchen landline that says “The answer is NO”, so she wouldn’t volunteer for any more activities than she already had. But she rarely used it, preferring to help others in any way she could. When a Vietnamese refuge family was moving from Dallas to Houston, but the eldest son wanted to finish his senior year, Mom arranged for Viet to stay with them that year. David was the only child still at home by then.
If you came over and the Sound of Music LP was playing, that meant it was housework time! She wore out two of those LPs over the years while dusting and vacuuming. She loved music – symphony, Dallas Summer Musicals, opera, church music, and of course, John Philip Souza marches. If it was Sunday after church, it was time for the Dallas Cowboys on TV. Later, she added the Mavericks to the TV sports. She and Daddy travelled to Europe several times, even bringing back a souvenir Mercedes they drove through Germany before shipping back.
When the nest was empty, she kept busy with book club, Cornelian club (school administrator’s wives back in the day that all administrators were men!), investment club, church choir, painting the scenery for every Cliff Temple Baptist VBS and production for a lot of years, many painting classes and trips, both local and abroad. She filled their home with watercolors of hers and her teachers. Her love of painting took a backseat when Daddy was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1990. She took care of him through the surgery, the chemo and finally his hospice care in 1992, after 40 years of marriage. That was a very difficult time for her, but she was able to get through the grief, start attending church again, even start singing in the church choir and painting again. Not only did she resume painting and classes, she decided it was time to resume the dance lessons she had to give up during WWII. But instead of ballet, she took ballroom classes! She got accomplished enough to win several competitions! We have the trophies (and dresses and shoes) to prove it!
She was still dancing and painting when a mutual friend introduced her to a retired math teacher. Tony had escaped from Communist Yugoslavia in the early 60’s, had worked as a surveyor in the Venezuelan jungles for oil companies and then got his PhD from SMU. The mutual friend thought that he would be good for Mom since he was a kind and decent man who also played the accordion and was even in an accordion club. These common interests led to a second chance at love for both. They married in 1998, settling in the house on Southwestern she’d grown up in, that Walter had died in, and proceeded to grow figs and tomatoes and beans in Tony’s backyard garden. This led to mother making lots of fig preserves and freezing lots of produce! And playing lots of polkas at Oktoberfest with the band!
When Tony started showing unmistakable signs of dementia, she took care of him in a way to preserve his dignity. Going to the grocery store or doctor, she would navigate so he could continue to drive – which alarmed us when we found out about it – but they managed without a scratch for years! The same weekend that Bryan and Annetta got married in 2017, Tony went to water his beloved fig trees, fell and broke his hip. The broken hip led to pneumonia and his death. Once again Evadelle was widowed.
Because of her increasing physical frailty and mental decline, Bryan and Annetta packed up and moved their entire household into mom’s garage and upstairs den so they could care for her these last four years. Her failing eyesight, hearing, strength and mind are now past tense! As a believer in Jesus Christ, she’s got a new glorified body and she’s dancing down those streets of gold, singing “The Hills Are Alive” and looking for more beautiful things to paint!
Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.Sparkman-Hillcrest.com for the Williams family.
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