Jack Ellis Williamson

1933 - 2014

Dr. Jack Ellis Williamson, 81, died Friday, Dec. 19, 2014. Memorial visitation: 10 a.m. to noon Monday, Dec. 29, at Wade Family Funeral Home, 4140 W. Pioneer Parkway, Arlington. Jack was born on a farm on the banks of the Washita River north of Hammon, Okla., on Nov. 21, 1933, to Bollard Edmund Williamson and wife, Magna Merle Boswell Williamson. He was carried out of the floodwaters of the Hammon flood of 1934. His parents farmed the land except for three years during World War II when the family lived in Long Beach, Calif. After returning to Hammon, he graduated from Hammon High School in 1952 and entered study at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. He married Shirley Lou Phillips in 1955. Finishing his bachelor's degree, he entered the veterinary school there. Stephen Eric was born in 1958, and upon obtaining his DVM in 1959, the family moved to Weatherford, Okla., where Anne Celeste was born in 1960. He practiced large and small veterinary medicine and surgery there until he entered federal service as a USDA veterinarian. His initial post was in Greenville, Miss. In 1967, he transferred to service at the Dardanelle, Ark., poultry inspection unit, and moved his family to Russellville, Ark. He stayed at this post until his retirement in 1994. Shirley passed away in 2000, and he spent many of his remaining years in the company of Gail Huss of Maumelle, Ark., our longtime family and friend. He was a gentleman, stylish, frugal and an omnivorous reader. Due to his rehabilitation training after suffering polio as a 16-year-old, he continued physical training up to the end. He was a Methodist. He will be missed by all of us. Survivors: Brothers, Maurice Williamson of Kinderhook, Ill., and Donald Williamson of Hammon, Okla.; children, Stephen Eric Williamson, M.D., of Waynesville, Mo., and Anne Celeste Ingle and husband, Donald Ingle, M.D., of Arlington; and grandchildren, Elizabeth Ingle, Samuel Williamson and Zachary Ingle.