Saturday, May 4, 2024
Glenda Williamson went to her eternal home on Nov. 18, 2023. She was 87.
A Celebration of Life Service was held at 10 a.m., Monday, Nov. 27, at First Baptist Church in Waco, followed by a reception in the church parlor. Burial preceded the service at Oakwood Cemetery in Waco.
Glenda Erle (Coward) Williamson was born in Gatesville to the late Jim Lawrence and Mary Ella (Byrom) Coward on Aug. 15, 1936. Glenda was the youngest of five children. When her oldest sister, Blanche, held Glenda in her arms for the first time, she exclaimed, “This is a little Sugie!” Sugie was the name that stuck with Glenda from that day forward. “Sugie” was descriptive of her sweet spirit and a life filled with love.
Glenda grew up in the Ames community of Coryell County and attended school in Gatesville. She graduated from Gatesville High School in 1954. She played the French horn in the high school band and was named “Band Sweetheart” by her classmates in her senior year. She took piano lessons as a child and continued to learn throughout her life to become an outstanding pianist.
Glenda became a Christian early in life. She was baptized in the Leon River on the “old Byrom Place” (her grandfather’s home located near her childhood home and the Hay Valley Baptist Church). Her grandfather, Byrom, donated the land in 1891 on which the Hay Valley Baptist Church was founded. Glenda became the church pianist at Hay Valley at age 12, a position she held until she went to Baylor University. Whenever she returned home to visit, she was asked to be the pianist for that day.
While a student at Baylor, Glenda continued to love and minister to others. She went to New Mexico in the summer of 1959 as a Southern Baptist student missionary to Native American tribes. She conducted Vacation Bible Schools in various parts of New Mexico. She also served two summers as an “Invincible” with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, also conducting Bible Schools for children in various parts of Texas. As a Baylor student, she also worked in the Friday Night Baylor Missions program in Waco. After graduation, she taught children’s Sunday School in churches in Arlington, Denton, McAllen, and Commerce, while raising and teaching her own children life’s meaning and values.
Glenda graduated from Baylor in 1958 with a degree in education. She proudly served as an elementary teacher in the public schools of Arlington, Denton, McAllen, and Commerce. In McAllen, she was a Reading Specialist working in her
own Reading Lab where she taught English to hundreds of Spanish-speaking children.
Glenda met Jimmy Williamson, of Henderson, Texas, when they were students working in the Bill Daniel Student Center Cafeteria at Baylor University in the fall of 1954. They began dating a year later, a relationship that continued until Jimmy graduated in 1957 and began his teaching career in the Arlington ISD. A week following her graduation from Baylor in March 1958, she began work as a music teacher at Johnson Station Elementary School in the Arlington ISD. Soon they were again dating and enjoying life in Arlington. They married on June 5, 1959, at First Baptist Church in Gatesville, and returned to Arlington to continue as teachers and to start their family. Daughters Shelly and Amy were both born in Arlington.
In July 1990, Jimmy retired from Texas A&M University-Commerce, and they moved to Waco where he joined the Baylor University School of Education faculty. They moved to the city where they first met, and they built a home on the campus they loved. First Baptist Church of Waco became their church home.
Glenda was blessed to travel the world with Jimmy and his Baylor graduate students on study-abroad programs to 21 nations on five continents. Their home on the Baylor campus was always open to students, Baylor friends and faculty. Glenda looked forward to every Baylor Homecoming when many friends in the classes of 1957 and 1958 came by before or after the Homecoming parade or football game.
Glenda was an active member of Baylor University Round Table. She was also a member and previous president of the faculty wives organization at Texas A&M University-Commerce.
Glenda was preceded in death by her parents, Jim Lawrence and Mary Ella Coward; siblings, Byrom Coward, Milton Coward, and Mary Jane Barnard, all formerly of Gatesville, and Blanche Hicks of Chula Vista, California; and her daughter, Amy Williamson, of Waco.
She is survived by her husband of 64 years, Jimmy Williamson, of Waco; daughter, Shelly, and husband, Charley Wilkison, of Austin; four grandchildren, Justin Michael Ramon, of Austin, Charles Birk Wilkison, of Austin, Claire Elizabeth Wilkison, and her husband, David Tompsett, of China Spring, Katie Jane Wilkison, and her husband, Mason Turpin, of Austin; and many nephews, nieces, and cousins who share the Coward, Byrom, and Williamson family legacies; as well as hundreds of friends found in every place that she lived, worked, and traveled.
The family gratefully acknowledges the love and care provided by the staff at St. Anthony’s Care Center and Amedisys Hospice Care in Waco. We are especially grateful to Norma Drake, her devoted Visiting Angel who faithfully loved and met her needs for more than four years.
In honor and remembrance of her life, the family has established the Glenda Williamson Christian Music Scholarship at the First Baptist Church of Waco. Scholarships will be awarded to Baylor students who share their musical talents for the glory of God by performing in the church’s choir or orchestra. In lieu of floral remembrances, the family requests donations be made in Glenda’s honor to this scholarship fund, the Alzheimer’s Association, alz.org, or a charity of your choice.
The family invites you to leave a message or memory on Glenda’s “Tribute Wall” at www.WHBfamily.com.
