PITTSFIELD — Her words captured the power of memory to create the eternal: As long as you remember someone, they never die.
They were spoken a few years ago by the Rev. M. Louise Williamson as she eulogized the Rev. Willard Durant, under whom she had served as pastor’s associate at Price Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church in Pittsfield. She spoke of the power of their lives, which intersected with her own after she moved from the Deep South to Pittsfield, where she forged a path of faith, family and fellowship.
Williamson died last month, at age 87, but is held close in the minds of her many family members and community who gathered Friday to celebrate her life.
Decades before orating at Price Memorial and Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church in Great Barrington, she was a girl growing up with her parents and several siblings in Tallassee, Ala., during segregation. After graduating from RR Moton Tallassee Colored High School, she and her siblings sought opportunity north, and Williamson, not long out of high school, moved to Harlem in New York City.
Coming of age in Jim Crow Alabama helped shape Williamson into an advocate for civil rights who judged people for who they were, not what they looked like or whom they loved, her children said.
“You know, she just made you feel welcome. Everyone was in for the redemption; it didn’t matter what you had done in your lifetime,” said her daughter, Joy Williamson Foster. “Everybody was afforded a second chance in her eyes.”
Her siblings, too, also had moved away from Tallassee, but they remained closely bonded, talking on the phone often in an experience that one of her five sons said instilled within his mother the importance of family.
“She understood what it meant to have the same blood and that, in the end, when it breaks down, that a lot of times, all you really have is your family,” Kerry Williamson said.
In Harlem, Williamson met the man who would become her husband, James, who had moved from his hometown in North Carolina. The growing family moved to Pittsfield, where they went on to raise six children in a beautiful home with a big backyard on Danforth Avenue, Kerry said.
It was a bustling home, full of children and headed by parents who sacrificed to set their children up for success, said Williamson’s youngest son, Shelby Williamson.
“They went above and beyond; they would go without,” said Shelby, who described his mother as “a good, kind gentle soul.”
Their family home would become the meeting spot where her children, and eventually her children’s children, reunited from different states.
“There was nothing she wouldn’t do, and there was nothing she hadn’t done, when it comes to her kids, grandkids and great-grandkids,” Kerry said. Her love for her 15 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren was similarly returned, he said.
When she wasn’t volunteering, visiting with friends, at work or at church, the “homebody” often was found listening to music, following her beloved New York Mets, or listening to her sons’ basketball games on the radio.
James launched his career at Berkshire Bank and Trust, starting as a loan officer and working his way up to branch manager, while Williamson worked out of their home for Pittsfield Dry Cleaners. When her children were older and more independent, Williamson served as a dietitian at the Early Childhood Development Center, a role that, later in life, “well into her 60s,” saw her return to school to study nutrition at Berkshire Community College.
Before A.M.E. Zion established its church on Linden Street, the Williamsons and other families worshipped at a house on Onota Street, Joy said. When the rabbi of the synagogue on Linden Street announced plans to close, he spoke with the Williamsons, and her father told them their congregation was searching for a place to worship, and the church purchased the building for a nominal price.
“I still remember, as a little girl, in 1974, we walked from Onota Street to our current location, and that was spearheaded by my parents,” she said.
Williamson went on to hold several roles within the church to which she was so deeply committed, her children said, becoming a consecrated deaconess in 1976 and a longtime member of the church choir. She started traveling for conventions about 1979, and did so for the next four decades, Joy said, while serving as district officer for A.M.E. Zion’s Women’s Home and Overseas Missionary Society.
Kerry recalls one time, more than 35 years ago, when his mother and father sat around their table at home, trying to figure out college finances for one of his brothers, who ultimately graduated from Duke University. Not long after, Kerry’s father started complaining about stomach problems, eating Rolaids to ease the persistent pain.
By the time he was checked, James Williamson was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer, and passed away about age 50. His death was devastating to the family, Kerry said. Williamson never remarried, but found comfort in the church.
“My mom leaned on the church after my dad died; that was her rock,” he said.
She was involved heavily in the Christian Center, Kevin said, especially after an injury forced her to retire from the Early Childhood Development Center, heading to Robbins Avenue a few times a week during lunchtime and helping out with clothes drives and other events.
“She was a very gracious person, and she felt a need to talk with people, and try to help them,” said Betsy Sherman, the center’s director.
In 2010, Williamson completed four years of biblical studies and became an ordained elder, serving as pastor of Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church until her retirement in 2017.
Williamson followed politics closely, and in 1965 was photographed in The Eagle at Park Square demonstrating for civil rights, Kevin said, and went on to help found the Women of Color Giving Circle. After President Barack Obama took office, Joy and her mother went to Washington and toured the White House. When they reached the West Wing, Joy said, Williamson, who Kevin said could not vote until well into her 30s, was overcome.
“Her thought was, ‘How can a little girl from Tallassee be standing right here, looking at President Obama’s desk?’” said Joy.
Christmas cards from the White House arrived at Williamson’s home for the next several years.
When Kerry thinks about his mother’s life, he marvels at the “light that went on” inside her, opening up a rich, hard-fought life not only for herself, but also for her children. She had a way of forging connections with strangers in no time at all, which Kerry’s wife, Rebecca, said persisted even as she began experiencing the symptoms of dementia.
One time, Williamson visited their home in Greenfield, Rebecca said, and she struck up a conversation with another woman who also suffered from dementia.
After learning of Williamson’s death, the woman, although herself experiencing memory loss, replied, “I’ll meet her up there one day, and she’ll remember me.”