Sara Alice Williams

Sara Alice Swigart entered life on October 19, 1938 in Fortville, IN as the first child of George and Edith (Goodman) Swigart. Her sister Betty followed on July 17, 1941. Edith and her two children moved to Bedford, IN after their father left. During World War 2, Edith worked at Crane Manufacturing making gunpowder for battleship guns. After the war she worked at RCA eventually rising to the level of team lead (the highest that a woman could occupy at that time). Sara graduated high school in 1957 and attended Anderson College where she majored in Education. She also met and married Ben J Williams on June 25, 1960. After graduating college, both worked as schoolteachers in Pontiac, MI. Their first child, Eric, was born on December 22, 1962. In the years following, Sara continued to teach school in Bowling Green, OH and Knoxville, TN as Ben pursued graduate and doctoral degrees. Sara returned to school in 1969 and earned a master's degree in early childhood education at the University of North Carolina. In 1971, the family moved to Houston, Texas where Laura was born on October 29, 1971.
The family resided in Texas for the next 20 years. Early on, Sara was a stay-at-home mom for her two children. Later, Sara held a variety of positions in child development facilities including director. She was also active in the Houston Area Association for the Education of Young Children (HAEYC) and published a book with two co-authors of a curriculum for 3–5-year-olds.
Ben and Sara left Houston in the early 90's and moved to Shelby, NC where she worked in Child Care Resource and Referral and Health Start. In the late 90's, the family moved to Cary, NC where she continued to work with both Child Care Resource and Referral and Head Start. She also taught classes in early childhood education at Wake County Community College. She retired in 2006. In early 2020, they moved to Raleigh, and then Chapel Hill and in 2021, they moved to Charlotte, NC to be close to Laura. Ben passed in 2023.
Throughout her life, Sara was active in the United Methodist Church and many children's education organizations. Her hobbies included genealogy and scrapbooking. She was an avid reader with a special interest in Jane Austen. Sara participated in many Jane Austen related events in North Carolina and even made a trip to England for an international conference for the Jane Austen Society of North America.
After several years of memory issues, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2020 and has resided in a memory care unit since 2022. She departed life on February 4, 2025, aged 86, with her children by her side.
She is survived by Eric (son) and Laura (daughter and supposed favorite child) and her sister Betty White-Allen. She also had many nieces and nephews as well as great and great great nieces, and nephews.