Nancy Williams Was the Best

Winthrop lost one of its very best people with the passing of Nancy Williams, the long-time executive director of the Winthrop Council on Aging, this past week.

Nancy Williams was irrepressible. We think of her as always with a smile on her face, full of energy, and a strong-willed advocate for the senior citizens of this community.

Indeed, we could barely believe it when we read that Nancy had just turned 68 at the time of her passing — so officially, she herself was a senior citizen — but she was by far one of the “youngest-at-heart,”  almost-70 persons we’ve ever known.

Nancy was the driving force behind the construction of the present senior center facility (now known as the Robert A. DeLeo Senior Center). She work tirelessly to convince both town officials and townspeople that the former senior center, which had been housed in an old, dilapidated building, was wholly inadequate to meet the needs of a new generation of Winthrop’s senior citizens.

That effort to build the DeLeo Senior Center stands as the crowning achievement of Nancy’s lengthy tenure as the director of the Council on Aging and marked a milestone in the commitment of our town to its senior citizen community.

Nancy Williams was a person who was admired and respected by all who knew her. She was a zealous advocate not only as regards the particular issues affecting Winthrop’s seniors, but also for the concerns of senior citizens in general. If Nancy Williams was with you on something, you had a tremendous team player on your side.

We know we join with all of our fellow townspeople, both senior citizens and non-seniors, in offering our condolences to her family. All of us who knew this wonderful lady always will remember her with great fondness. May she rest in peace.