Obituary of Nancy Schwam Williams

Nancy Schwam Williams—world traveler, insurance saleswoman, avid reader, gardener, seamstress, pianist, and loving mother of two daughters—died at her home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on April 3. The cause was peripheral neuropathy.

Born Nancy Schwam in Memphis, Tennessee on May 18, 1939, Ms. Williams wed Hubert Billingsley in 1955 and had a daughter, Carole Camille (Mimi), in October of that year; the marriage ended in divorce. From 1956 to 1958 she attended the University of Florida; later she would earn certifications and a degree from the Wharton School of Business. In 1960 she wed Thomas Ames Ehninger, an advertising creative, in Chicago; their daughter, Lauren Dana, was born in December of 1961.

Following a move to Simsbury, Connecticut in 1968, Ms. Williams became an insurance agent at Mass Mutual in Springfield, Massachusetts. The couple moved to St. Thomas, USVI in 1985, where they ran their own advertising and insurance agency; four years later they survived Hurricane Hugo. The marriage ended in Mr. Ehninger’s 1995 death in Beaufort, South Carolina.

In 1996 Ms. Williams married James Robert Williams and moved to La Jolla, California, where Mr. Williams headed Kearny Mesa Toyota. The couple roamed the globe and settled in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where Mr. Williams died in 2012. Survivors include her sister, Carolyn Bernard, of Memphis, Tennessee; her two daughters; and two grandsons, Bennett and Reid Fallow.

Memorial gifts to UNC Hospice may be made online (use link on left), or checks (payable to Medical Foundation of NC) may be mailed to 123 West Franklin Street, Suite 510, Chapel Hill, NC 27516.

The Williams family is under the care of Walker's Funeral Home of Chapel Hill.