Betty Jean Williams

Betty Jean Williams was born July 18,1940, in Versailles, Kentucky, to the late Mary Eliza Jackson and the late James Washington, Sr. She met and was united in marriage to the late Rudy Williams, Sr., sixty-plus years ago. Betty Jean Williams departed this life Sunday, December 12, 2021.

How does one measure the life of a woman or a man? By their Seasons of Love. Betty Jean Williams was a loving wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, great-great grandmother, sister, aunt, niece, cousin, and friend. She showed her love in many ways, there’s no greater feeling than having her call you by the nickname she assigned to you.

Betty Jean lived a life full of love. She and Rudy, Sr. moved into a house and began laying and building a home and a foundation of love together. Whenever people enter the home that Betty and Rudy built, they can feel love and the peace surrounding them. Rudy told Betty she could have been an interior designer. Betty created her own family Wall of Love and Fame. When you enter the house, you are blessed with a display of photos lining the wall. These photos are of her children and grandchildren at various ages and stages of life. When people – whether friends, the repairman, the cable guy, or new guests enter -they are mesmerized by the wall and are sometimes able to spot someone they went to school with, work with, etc. Her grandchildren were always bringing over new photos and making special requests to Betty to be added to the wall.

Family and friends remember the house as “the spot” back in the day. Betty showed her love through cooking for her family, hosting family gatherings, holiday and birthday celebrations, cookouts, and family reunions, and getting together “just because”. Everything Betty Jean cooked was good. One of her family favorites is her chili.

Betty showed her love by the relationships she built. She never met a stranger whether shopping, riding the bus, in the grocery store, or in a public restroom. She knew about everything and everybody. If there was one thing you could count on it was Betty keeping in touch and asking how everybody is doing. Throughout the years she was known to sit on the porch catching a breeze, chatting with friends, being an eye for the neighborhood and providing advice and words of wisdom, or giving a cheerful greeting to all who stopped or walked by. Betty Jean loved to dance, whether she was in the house with her kids or enjoying nights at the Sha Ra, Elks Club, or other social venues with her girls (also known as “The Golden Girls”).

Betty loved to shop and could always find a deal. Her fashion sense was iconic. If kids needed an outfit for a dance, a date, the club, church, community event, formal affair, they knew that stopping by “Betty’s Boutique” was the best way to get right. She had dresses, pants suits, evening gowns, hats, jewelry, shoes, nail polish, coats, in every color of the rainbow and for every occasion. If you were one of her kids or grandkids, she saw to it that you looked right (school uniforms, church, and play clothes). She always dressed “to the nines” and carried herself with confidence. She didn’t have to ask for respect as it was automatically given to her. Betty also made sure Rudy, Sr. was looking right and dressed right, representing the family and himself well, whether in work, play, or when he needed to dress up.

Betty Jean Williams loved the Lord. She spent many of her early years by the side of the late Pastor Willie Mae Martin, her aunt through marriage, and her father-in-law, who she called Dad, the late Elder Dave Williams, reading and studying the Word, visiting the sick, singing hymns around the house, and raising her children in the way they should go. She lived the Word of God in how she lived her life and how she spread His love to everyone she met and every life she touched.

We can find comfort in knowing that she is now with God, her Heavenly Father, who she served and who was the head of her life. She is also reunited with the love of her life. If you listen carefully, you’ll hear the echoes of her laughter as Rudy greets her with a hug from behind and whispers, “I missed you, Ma-hoo” into her ear as he softly kisses her on the cheek.

Betty Jean Williams leaves behind her five children Terry, Rudy, Jr. (Donna), Judy, Garry, and Curtis, and sixty-plus grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great grandchildren, and even a new great-grandchild on the way. She is also survived by her five younger siblings, James Washington, Jr. (Alysha), William Washington, Michelle Washington-Cleveland, Toni Washington-Cleveland, and Aretha Washington-Booth (Gerry). She also leaves her beloved aunts Tillie and Martha and her loving sister in-laws Queen, Catherine, Mildred, Nellie, Beverly, Kuumba, Evelyn and brother in-law Ishmael; her best friends Miss Evelyn, Miss Ernestine, and Miss Geneva; and a host of cousins, relatives; and friends.

Betty Jean Williams will forever be loved and remembered. Her family will continue to pass on her legacy of love. Her ministry was her family and spreading God’s love throughout the world. She lived it all well.