Winifred B. Williams

A blizzard held the town of Anaconda, Montana in its icy grip that Christmas day of 1910. Just twenty-three days old, tiny Winifred “Winnie” Bernardine Morris slept the day away as her Irish immigrant parents celebrated the day with the infant’s two older sisters.

When Winnie was three, the family traveled hundreds of miles by covered wagon through the wilderness of Montana to “homestead” in the Centennial Valley. It proved a harsh life, especially when the father had to leave his expectant wife and three daughters to work in the Copper Mines of Butte in order to make ends meet. Of those days Winnie still recalls speeding down mountains on homemade skis with her baby brother, John, on her shoulders, collecting snow to make ice cream on the Fourth of July, and holding on behind her sister as they rode horseback to fetch their father from the train station – a distance of thirty miles!

By Winnie’s twelfth summer, the family had to return to Butte, a wild mining town on “the richest hill on earth.” During her days at Butte High, she especially loved being on the swim team – how luxurious seemed the heated pool in those sub-zero winters! By the time she graduated, Winnie, with creamy white skin, black hair and big blue eyes was a beauty who on occasion modeled fur coats.

She earned her primary teaching credential at State Normal and taught grades one through eight in a one room school house. During a visit to her aunt Bessie in McGill, Nevada, she attended a “roaring twenties” dance and fell for the band’s clarinetist, Harry Williams. They married in Los Angeles in 1933. In search of work they moved to San Francisco, then back to Los Angeles and eventually back to McGill, Nevada. By 1939 they were the parents of three, Harry James, Mary “Mimi,” and Barbara Eileen.

At the dawn of World War II, the family moved to Long Beach, where Harry worked nights building battleships while Winnie became a ‘Rosie the Riveter,’ spending her days building bombers at Douglas Aircraft Company. Afraid Long Beach would be bombed, they moved to a small farm in Buena Park, where Winnie found work at Knott’s Berry Farm. Los Angeles became their home in the late forties. In 1960, Winnie returned to the classroom to love and teach third graders.

In 1964, en route to visit their married daughters in Santa Barbara, Winnie and Harry stopped in Meiners Oaks and, on impulse, bought a new home. Harry enjoyed the quaint town and his twelve grandchildren until his death in 1969.

Widowed, Winnie attended daily Mass, gardened, volunteered, tutored and enjoyed flights to Las Vegas in a small Cessna piloted by Father Smith. Then, seven decades after crossing the plains of Montana in a covered wagon, Winnie flew on a supersonic jet to the Holy Land!

Twenty-three years ago she moved to St. Joseph’s Retirement Residence where, on December 2, 2010, she celebrated her 100th birthday. On March 18, 2011 God called his faithful daughter home – doubtless to reward her for a long life well lived. In addition to her three children, she leaves 12 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren.

The family would like to thank St. Joseph’s Health and Retirement Center for their loving care all these years.

A rosary will be recited Thursday, March 24, 7:00 p.m., at the Ted Mayr Funeral Home, 3150 Loma Vista Rd., Ventura. A funeral mass will take place eon Friday, March 25, 11 a.m., at St. Joseph’s Health and Retirement Center, 2464 E. Ojai Ave., Ojai, in the chapel.

Arrangements are under the direction of the Ted Mayr Funeral Home and Crematory, Ventura. Condolences may be left at tedmayrfuneralhome.com.