Reba White Williams

1936 - 2024

Reba White Williams

May 21, 1936 - October 14, 2024

Greenwich, Connecticut - Reba White Williams died on October 14, 2024 in her home in Greenwich, CT, from complications of Parkinson's Disease.

Reba was born in Gulfport, MS, on May 21, 1936. She attended schools in Jackson, MS, Signal Mountain, TN, and spent most of her young life in Lillington, NC. She went to St. Mary's School in Raleigh, NC and graduated from Duke University (1958). Reba then moved to New York City, where she spent most of her adult life. She worked as a researcher for McKinsey & Co., graduated from Harvard Business School with an MBA (1970), and joined the Wall Street research firm Mitchell, Hutchins as a securities analyst. There she met her husband to be, Dave H. Williams. She turned to journalism as a writer for Institutional Investor magazine, and credits that experience with reviving her interest in writing.

As Reba remarked at the time, "To avoid becoming the most boring couple on Wall Street, we need a hobby." She and Dave chose collecting American fine art prints, and built the largest private collection of its kind, concentrating on lost or forgotten artists of the early 20th century. Reba took the "hobby" seriously and earned two degrees in art history, an MA from Hunter College and a Ph.D. from the Graduate Center, CUNY. She created fifteen exhibitions from the Williams collection, wrote the catalogs for each, and circulated the exhibits to more than one hundred museums worldwide. Eventually, the couple donated their collection to the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the British Museum. During this period, Reba served as President of the New York City Art Commission.

Reba was a member of the board of directors and director of special projects of Alliance Capital Management (now AllianceBernstein). She conceived and implemented an annual literary contest, The Willie Morris Award for Southern Literature, now in its 15th year and under management by the University of Mississippi.

Aspiring to fiction writing, Reba attended several schools, earned a MS from Antioch University, and published her first mystery novel, Fatal Impressions. Subsequently, she published two more mysteries and a children's book.

Upon receiving her Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the Graduate Center, CUNY, Reba was asked her most important legacy: "I planted a lot of trees." Reba is survived by her husband Dave and nephew Eddie White and his family, wife Melanie and children Braeden and Kinsley. She is also survived by her stepdaughters, Kate Williams-McWorter and MaryVaughn Williams, and a brother, George O. White. Any contributions to Reba's memory should go to The Greenwich Tree Conservancy, www.greenwichtreeconservancy.org.