Nancy Williams Gram
By Tom Farrell Nancy

Former United States President Harry Truman (right) enjoys a carriage ride with Nancy Williams and Michigan Governor G. Mennen Williams during Mackinac Island's 1955 Lilac Festival. Mr. Truman was president from 1945 to 1953. (Photograph courtesy of Angie Bunker)

Nancy Quirk Williams Gram, widow of six-term Michigan Governor G. Mennen Williams and more recently of H. James Gram of Grosse Pointe Farms, died Monday, June 19, 2006. She was 91 years old.

The former Mackinac Island West Bluff cottager and Grosse Pointe Farms resident moved to Savannah, Georgia, in April 2005. She had been living in an independent living facility until early May, when she suffered a stroke and had been in the care of Hospice since. She died at 5 a.m., according to her son, Gery.

Her last public appearances in Lansing were in 1997 when she attended the dedication of the G. Mennen Williams State Office Building and 1998 when she spoke at a meeting of the Michigan Political History Society.

She continued until several years ago to visit Mackinac Island for the annual G. Mennen Williams dinner in recognition of her husband's contributions to the development of Mackinac State Historic Parks. The dinner this year is Saturday, June 24.

Born in Ypsilanti June 12, 1915, she met Soapy Williams on the campus of the University of Michigan, where both were students. They were married in 1937, a week after Nancy earned her degree in Social Work.

Thomas J. Noer, author of the recently published "Soapy, A Biography of G. Mennen Williams," wrote that the relationship between Mennen and Nancy Williams "was unique."

"Unlike most political wives of the 1950s, Nancy was an important and active campaigner, from the lonely initial efforts in 1948 through all of his contests for Governor," Mr. Noer wrote. "She also was a key political strategist who often influenced her husband's policies and appointments."

Mr. Noer, a professor of humanities at Carthage College in Racine, Wisconsin, said he had two lengthy interviews with Mrs. Gram in 2003 while doing his research on the biography of the six-term governor.

"It would have been difficult to paint a true portrait of G. Mennen Williams without her help," he said.

Mr. Williams was elected Governor in 1948 and re-elected in 1950, 1952, 1954, 1956, and 1958. He later served as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, was U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines during the Johnson Administration, and served 16 years on the Michigan Supreme Court, including four years as Chief Justice.

Honored in June 1986 for his 50 years of public service, Gov. Williams died in February 1988.

In 1989, Mrs. Williams married H. James Gram, a longtime family friend whose wife had died about the time the former governor died. Mr. Gram died in November 2004.

"Nancy Williams was a great lady and worked alongside of her husband to accomplish the goals that he set and, in every way, was his helpmate to accomplish what was good for the State of Michigan," said Lawrence Rubin of St. Ignace, who was appointed by Gov. Williams in 1950 as administrative secretary to the newly-created Mackinac Bridge Authority.

George Weeks, author of "Stewards of the State: The Governors of Michigan" and former UPI corespondent in Lansing and Washington, recalls Mrs. Williams as a "good, inthe know source" and active in her husband's career.

"When Williams was Assistant Secretary of State for African affairs during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations," he wrote, "she became deeply involved in advancing U.S. interests on the Washington diplomatic circuit, hosting African dignitaries at their Georgetown home, and developing her own relationships at various levels. With a friend, she once made a private trip to West Africa while Williams held his State Department post."

Ex-First Lady Paula Blanchard, in the chapter she wrote in "Stewards of the State" about first ladies, said, "Nancy probably set the record for miles logged, and in 1948 drove herself and her husband in an old DeSoto as they criss-crossed the state. With no staff, no official residence and no budget, Nancy almost single handedly balanced her private life that included speaking, traveling, hosting her own TV show, 'Nancy's Scrap Book', and arranging countless meetings and functions."

Mr. Weeks notes Mrs. Williams was well-suited as the DeSoto driver. "She was a driver for the Red Cross Motor Corps while he was in the Navy," he said.

Mrs. Gram is survived by her son, G. Mennen Williams Jr. of Savannah, and two daughters and their families, Nancy and Theodore Ketterer III of Waban, Massachusetts, and Wendy Stock Williams of Grosse Pointe Farms. Also surviving are eight grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren, and five stepdaughters, Margaret King of New York, Tina Gram of Sommerville, Massachusetts, Betsy Calcutt of Traverse City, Marion Laughlin of Ann Arbor, and Carol Davis of Owings Mill, Maryland.

Born in Ypsilanti June 12, 1915, Mrs. Gram was a graduate of the University of Michigan School of Social Work, where she was a member of Collegiate Sorosis. She also was a member of the Colonial Dames of America National Society and the Junior League of Detroit.

She was active on several boards in Michigan and Washington, D.C. and was an active collector of Asian porcelains, African art, and antiques, much of which she donated to museums.

Her interests were her family, needlepoint, bridge, golf, and tennis.

Amemorial service will be at 2 p.m. Sunday, June 25, at St. Paul Episcopal Cathedral in Detroit. Soapy Williams' funeral was held in the Cathedral in February 1988. The Reverend Canon William S. Logan, Senior Canon Emeritus, will preside at the service, which will be followed by a reception in Barth Hall.

Internment will be at the Mackinac Island Cemetery on Mackinac Island, next to her first husband, probably in late September.

Editor's Note: Tom Farrell covered Lansing for United Press International during the time Soapy Williams served as governor and supreme court justice.