Thereca H. Williams

SALINA - Thereca H. Williams, 87, Salina and a former Parsons resident, died Friday, Oct. 8, 2004, at the Smokey Hill Rehabilitation Center in Salina. She had been in failing health. Thereca was born July 6, 1917, at Covington, Tenn., to Edward and Hattie Matthews Fiffer. The family moved to Parsons when she was a year old. She grew up and attended school in Parsons. She attended Douglass High School. She was a homemaker and also did housekeeping work for the family of John O'Bryan. She was employed at the Parsons State Hospital and Training Center as a cook and at the Kansas Army Ammunition Plant as an assembly line worker. She retired from the plant in the mid 1970s. She moved to Salina in 1994. She married Herman Lawrence Williams on April 9, 1942, at Parsons. He preceded her in death on Oct. 13, 1980. She was a member of New Hope Baptist Church in Parsons, and she was baptized in the church when she was 15. She was very active in the church, s erving in the Mission Circle and on the Usher Board as president. She also was a member of St. John's Missionary Baptist Church in Salina. She enjoyed reading, sewing and cooking. Survivors include two sons, Lewis Williams, and his wife, Betty, and Wilbur Williams, both of Kansas City, Mo.; two daughters, Sandra Jarrell, and her husband, Jay, Jacksonville, Fla., and Anna Marzette, Topeka; four sisters, Kathryn Lucas, Junction City, and Geraldine Briscoe, Arlena Prim and Rachel Holt, all of Salina; a brother, Lancer Martin, and his wife, Juanita, Salina; 13 grandchildren; 28 great-grandchildren; two great-great-grandchildren; numerous nieces and nephews; numerous great-nieces and great-nephews; and two cousins, Rose Huston and Alice Shaw, both of Parsons. A funeral service for Thereca H. Williams will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at New Hope Baptist Church in Parsons, with the Rev. Allen Smith officiating. Burial will be in Oakwood Cemetery. The family will receive friends fro m 7 to 8 Friday at the Carson-Wall Funeral Home in Parsons. Friends may call the funeral home after noon Thursday. Memorials are suggested to the New Hope Baptist Church and left at or mailed to the funeral home, P.O. Box 942, Parsons, Kan. 67357.