Williams, Betty Cattell

Betty Cattell Williams, 85, passed away on Tuesday, January 14, 2014. A native of Washington, D.C., she had lived in Blacksburg for nearly 50 years before returning to the Washington area in 2012 to be closer to family. She was a graduate of the University of Kansas and had worked for both the Bureau of Mines and McGraw Hill as an editor before her marriage in 1958. Director of Blacksburg’s YMCA Crafts Fair for 25 years, she was also active in the League of Women Voters and the AAUW and served as a guide at Smithfield Plantation for a number of years after her retirement from the YMCA in 1994. Preceded in death by her husband, William H. Williams, a philosophy professor at Virginia Tech, Betty Williams is survived by her brother and sister-in-law, Robert and Brenda Cattell of Fairfax, Va.; by daughter and son-in-law, Sarah and Charles Holtman of Minneapolis, Minn.; by son and daughter-in-law Bill and Cissie Williams and son Stephen Williams, all of Silver Spring, Md.; and by son and daughter-in-law Matthew and Jodi Williams of Vienna, Va.; as well as by six grandchildren, Tasha, Michael, Molly, Emma, Sophia and Eliza; nephew Marc Cattell and wife Katie, niece Maria Cattell, and their children. The family plans a memorial service at her Blacksburg home in the spring.