Jim was born in Big Springs, Texas on October 19, 1921, the second child of Munroe Harrison Williams (Lorena, Texas) and Lottie Adelia (nee Rutherford) Williams (Rice, Texas). He spent most of his youth, along with his older sister Ada Munroe in the Texas panhandle. When he was six, the family moved to Lubbock where his father took a position at the Citizens National Bank. As a child, Jim contracted rheumatic fever and missed a year of school. During the height of the dust bowl his family migrated to Los Angeles briefly but returned to Lubbock where Jim graduated from Lubbock High School in 1940.
At Texas Technological College, Jim began studying for a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. Following Pearl Harbor, he served in the Army and received a medical discharge. With the war still underway, Jim spent time working on war related construction projects before returning to college to finish his degree. At Texas Tech he met and married his wife, Bettie White of Claude, Texas, on June 30, 1946. Six children and sixty-one years of marriage followed. The family attended St. Paul’s on the Plain Episcopal Church. Jim was active with his college fraternity Alpha Tau Omega and with the Lubbock Little League Association, coaching and as treasurer for several years. Jim was employed by a Lubbock accounting practice until the family moved to San Diego in 1966.
Settling first in Santee and later in the San Carlos neighborhood of San Diego, Jim managed one of San Diego’s first computerized bookkeeping services and was financial controller of Taylor Carpet Company. He eventually became a Century 21 real estate broker and maintained his realtor’s license until 2004. Jim was an active member of All Saints’ Episcopal Church. He was a founding board member of the Friends of Handicapped Children and also served as treasurer and as a committee chair for St. Paul’s Manor Resident’s Association. He loved golf and played weekly at the Mission Trails Golf Course until last December.
His wife preceded him in death on March 16, 2007. Jim is survived by one brother-in-law Wilbur Leonard White of Caldwell, Texas and many members of a large loving family, including all of his children: James Munroe Williams and wife Janie Archibald Williams of Austin, Texas; Lynn Williams Hawkes and husband Howard Hawkes of San Diego; Bambi Williams Leonard and husband Chris Leonard of Carpinteria; Richard P. Williams and wife Debbie Johns Williams of El Cajon; Kirk White Williams of Fallbrook; and Timothy Luke Williams and Alison Carroll of San Diego; as well as seven grandchildren: James Munroe Williams, Jr. and wife Corrie Ruth Colvin Williams of Boulder, Colorado; Katie Williams Baucom and husband Brian Robert Baucom of Salt Lake City, Utah, Trevor David Hawkes of Carlsbad, Stacey Lynn Williams and Jamie Catherine Williams of El Cajon, Daryl Alan Hawkes of Champaign, Illinois, and Kelsey Ann Leonard of Carpinteria; and a great, grandchild on the way, his nieces, nephews and cousins.
The family wishes to express their appreciation to San Diego Hospice, to the staff of St. Paul’s Retirement Community, and to Jim’s many friends, especially Bettie Lu Thorn, for their wonderful support and care during his brief illness. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to Independent Choices and Options, Inc. (a non-profit organization committed to enhancing the lives of people who have developmental disabilities), c/o Advanced Options Adult Daycare Services, 302 Enterprise Street, Suite C, Escondido, CA 92029.
A memorial service celebrating Jim’s life will be held on Saturday February 16, 2013 starting at 10:30am in All Saints’ Episcopal Church, 625 Pennsylvania Ave., San Diego, CA 92103. His ashes will be interred at St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church in San Diego.
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