Sheila M. Williams

It is with a combination of sorrow and relief that we announce the passing of our wife and mother, Sheila Moriarty Williams at the age of 70. We lost her slowly to Alzheimer's Disease over the past 6.5 years and on the morning of December 23, 2023, we lost the last of her.
She is survived by her husband of 48 years, Jimmy Williams, her daughter and son-in-law Courtney Williams and Erik Lindberg of Peekskill, and her daughter and son-in-law Meghan Williams and Joe Ladson of Somers. She leaves behind three grandchildren, Bernadette Ladson and Gunnar and Irene Lindberg, as well as numerous nieces and nephews, and many friends who were more like family. She is predeceased by her parents Patrick and Irene (Walsh) Moriarty, her brothers Donald and Patrick Moriarty, and her beloved older sister Eleanor Culley.
In lieu of flowers, the family is asking for donations to the Alzheimer's Association to address the gross lack of funding for research, aid for patients and families, and coverage for long-term care; or to The Catskills Center to protect and share the mountains she loved.
Sheila was born on January 14, 1953 to Patrick and Irene Moriarty of Flatbush, Brooklyn. As a girl, her four siblings called her Sister Sheila in a nod to her annoyingly devout Catholicism. The Sisters at Holy Cross and later Bishop McDonald High School disagreed, with at least one nun calling her "a near occasion of sin". She was a long time parishioner of St. James Parish, preferring to attend mass at Our Lady of the Lake, where she worshiped from childhood. Her faith and fortitude she owed to her mother, who raised five kids as a widow. Sheila adored her older sister Eleanor who was like a second mother and her elder brothers were always looking out for her (except when they accidentally pushed Pat through the wall of the playroom and blamed her for it).
Her summers were spent in Lake Carmel in the summer home her father had built two blocks from Beach 3 (the best beach). On a summer day, right before she left for college she met Jimmy Williams at Beach 3. Throughout their married life, they alternately thanked/blamed Bobby Arnold for being the one to introduce them (though they had met before when Jimmy was the bouncer at Happy Valley and Sheila snuck in with a fake ID). Jim spent four years, 5 cars, and 50,000 miles driving back and forth to visit her in Syracuse. That support helped Sheila to earn a Bachelors of Science in nursing from Syracuse University, never donating in response to their fundraising pleas due to their closure of the nursing school, (she had Irish Alzheimer's, and she forgot everything but the grudges).
Jim and Sheila were married in 1975 and made their home in Lake Carmel, two blocks from where they met in that summer home, brought back to life by a mortgage and Jim's sweat equity. She was a supportive wife, purchasing Jimmy's hunting license before she purchased their marriage license at the town clerk's office. She tolerated all the cars and trucks in the driveway, never once following through on her threat to put up pennants since it already looked like a used car lot. She enjoyed accompanying Jim to car shows and on trips (first on his motorcycle, then his jeep (sans doors), then his tractor-trailer, then his other Jeep, you get the idea). With her smarts and financial acumen, Jim and Sheila built a wonderful life together, including putting two kids through college and grad school and giving them the immense gift of the cabin.
To get away from it all as Lake Carmel became a year-round community they built a cabin in the Catskills, spending as much time as they could in the woods with no electricity and no cell reception. Despite her Brooklyn roots, Sheila learned to cook wild game, fight off porcupines, drive a fleet of off-road vehicles, stoke a wood stove, and use a shotgun. She was as comfortable in the woods as she was in the city.
Sheila was a wonderful mom, always taking her girls someplace- the Museum of Natural History, Mystic Seaport, Boston, Albany, Philadelphia, Broadway shows, off Broadway shows, off-off Broadway shows. In addition to her big mouth, independence, and sense of humor, Sheila passed on her love of theater, knack for finding cheap tickets, and sense of adventure to her daughters. She loved nothing more than a phone call out of the blue to chat and supported her daughters in all their (mis)adventures. She relished watching Jim with his daughters, realizing how much she lost with her own father's passing.
While she was still able, she was a wonderful nana. Taking the kids to the cabin for two weeks of day camp, teaching Irene to read, patching Gunnar's forehead when he split it open on a holiday weekend, and making pancakes with chocolate chips in them (which she never did for her daughters!). While her Alzheimer's had advanced by the time her namesake, Bernadette, was born, Sheila would hold her and look into her eyes, caress her face, and make it clear the spark of fierce love was still there.
In all aspects of her life, Sheila was known for her sense of humor, good timing with the most (in)appropriate joke, and knack for storytelling. She had the 'gift of gab' and could make people laugh just by reminding them of a joke (i.e. The Penguin Joke). She embodied the Irish stereotype of stirring up trouble, often asking people, "Have kissed the Blarney Stone? No? Well kiss my @ss, I sat on it!" Any and all situations were fair game for a joke, and many meals were nearly fatal due to the choking hazards of laughing with a mouthful.
Sheila thrived on the chaos and joy that came with a crowd, packing as many people as she could into the cabin and serving big breakfasts to the assembled masses. Her record was 24! She'd come home from work to find a crowd of kids had used all her tin foil for swords and shields and were practicing a scene from the Iliad for English class. Instead of being annoyed, she'd make dinner and invite them all to stay. She hosted cast parties after the school play and drove a vanload of girls to Lollapalooza (after talking to their incredulous parents and assuring them it was legit). She'd drive into the city on a school night to pick kids up from a concert because the trains weren't running that late. All of this she did with a smirk because she loved the antics.
Sheila loved the theater and converted many a friend with her philosophy of cheap tickets and free, on-street parking. She enjoyed traveling with her mother to Greece, to Russia and England with her sister-in-law Linda, and as part of The Three Musketeers to heckle performers in Branson, Missouri. She was a voracious reader and terrible singer, though she enjoyed music and her daughters' singing. She couldn't keep plants alive, not even the fake one her niece Kate gave her, which she left too close to the stove and melted. She was the hostess with the mostest, especially loving taking her turn hosting Christmas Eve with her sister and sisters-in-law every year.
She was active in the community, serving on the Putnam County Youth Board, opening her home to at-risk youth in crisis, helping raise three pups for Guiding Eyes for the Blind, and emceeing the breakfast for the senior citizens. She was also known to break up fights, foil pickpockets, provide first aid, pick up hitch-hikers (or sometimes just slow down enough to make them run and then take off and leave them), invite strangers home for dinner, invite strangers her sister invited to her house our over for dinner, and generally be a good human that did stuff because it might make for a good story.
Professionally, her career ranged from New York University Hospital to Putnam Hospital, Con Edison, and eventually school nursing at Brewster High School and later CV Starr Intermediate School. When she had to pay college tuition, her summers were spent as a public health nurse working immunization clinics, migrant health clinics, visiting nursing, and hospice nursing. She had an enormous impact on her students, helping with problems big and small, not all of them medical.
Sheila used to say, "I'm a nurse. I wipe asses for a living." She handled what could be embarrassing, uncomfortable, gross, or unpleasant like it was no big deal. She provided the most basic and the most tender care to anyone, but especially to those she cared about. She was a nurse through and through, as evidenced by how frequently people shared their intimate medical problems with her; not limited to the neighbor with the swollen testicle, the liquor store clerk with the heart condition, or the epileptic door-to-door insurance salesman who left without making a sale, but with valuable medical insights to take to his neurologist. She did, however, draw the line at looking at rashes while eating lunch in the faculty room, preferring to turn off the lights, cover the window, and eat in the dark of the nurse's office.
In 2015, she began having trouble with her speech, being unable to find the right word and struggling to communicate. For a woman known for her quick wit, it was a painful realization, and she took early retirement worrying it would impact her ability to care for her students. In 2017, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease at only 64 years old. They call Alzheimer's/dementia 'the long goodbye' for a reason, and in the last six years, her decline has been frighteningly fast and painfully slow at the same time. Jim became her round the clock caregiver, relieved by the girls for hunting trips, car shows, and weekends at the cabin. She would have been so grateful to him.
Despite being unable to communicate, Sheila miraculously retained her good nature and sense of humor (always laughing at the antics of her friends, daughters, and grandkids). Thankfully, she always recognized the love people felt for her, lighting up when her friends and family faithfully came to visit.
She was gutsy and brave, outspoken and hilarious, and she went to Catholic school with girls tougher than you.
Friends are invited to reach out to her daughters to retell any of her many jokes or funny stories.
Visitation will be held on Thursday, December 28, 2023 from 3:00pm to 7:00pm at Cargain Funeral Homes, Inc., 10 Fowler Avenue, Carmel, NY.
A Mass of Christian burial to honor and celebrate Sheila's life will take place at 11:30am, Friday, December 29, 2023 at Our Lady of the Lake Church, 1 Noonan Drive, Carmel, NY 10512.
Following Mass, a private cremation will take place.
At a future date, Sheila will be escorted to her final resting place for interment in Holy Cross Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY.
Funeral arrangements entrusted to Cargain Funeral Homes, Inc., 10 Fowler Avenue, Carmel, NY 10512, 845-225-3672, www.cargainfuneralhomes.com.
We at Cargain Funeral Homes, Inc. are deeply committed to responsibly responding to the health, well-being, and needs of the families, guests and communities we are privileged to serve.