The last of a Prescott clan

Someone very dear to me has departed from his life on this planet, not the first nor will it be the last; nevertheless, I feel compelled to write about him.

A native of Prescott, John Williams was always known in our younger days as Johnny Frank, to include his middle name.  That was to distinguish him from his nephew, Johnny Herbert, who is my first cousin.  The pair of them were named in honor of their respective father/grandfather, Johnie Louis Willliams, an early Prescott resident.

My life was interwoven with theirs; the memories comprise threads in the fabric of my existence.  Johnny Herbert and I are one month apart in age, thus spent many hours adventuring, running wild & unsupervised for much of the time - on horseback, in vehicles we were far too young to drive but did anyway, wandering wherever we cared to on foot, fishing in the creek at our grandparents’ farm in Oroville, California, with branch poles, bent pins & grasshoppers we caught in the field.  I could write a book about our doin’s, but that is not where I’m going now.

It’s his uncle who is the focus of my attention just now.  I did not know Johnny Williams well when we were young; he was just enough my senior that my shyness did not allow me to bridge the gap.  It’s just that he was always there in my consciousness.  

After the untimely death at age 25 of her husband, Thomas Herbert Miller, Johnny’s sister, Margaret (Williams), married my father’s brother, Lewis Kelley, and so our families were joined.  The elder Williams couple lived near us when I was growing up in rural west Phoenix, and many an evening was spent with them.  That was when families socialized on grassy lawns, favoring the out-of-doors under shady trees to the non-air-conditioned house interior.

During those times, Johnny was there - at the periphery of my existence - not that much older, but a nine-year age difference for a little girl is a daunting chasm, thus it was primarily in our adult years that he & I became friends, in addition to our family ties.

By then, Johnny was married to Patty, that dear person who claimed my father, Ira Kelley, a cowboy, as her best friend despite their disparate backgrounds and a generational age gap.  Many a wild back road jaunt in her pink Mary Kay Cadillac took the two of them laughing into unknown territory and becoming completely lost, while Johnny just shook his head at their antics.

In fact, Patty gave Johnny innumerable occasions to shake his head in disbelief at whatever jam she’d gotten herself into.

During those years, a kinship developed between Johnny and me.  Much of our camaraderie centered around extended family and all the various interactions.  Because of my propensity to discern connections between individuals, families & places, I researched a genealogy for John, and what a fascinating bunch of folks he descended from!  I will always cherish the time sitting side by side on the couch with him as he carefully listened to what I had discovered for him.

His paternal grandparents left their native Texas, and made their way to Prescott in a covered wagon.  Also Texans, Johnny’s parents came north to Prescott during the Great Depression, where his father worked for local lumber companies and built houses, including one at 1322 Paar, among others.  Johnny was born in Prescott, I believe at a house in Forbing Park.

Like his forebears, John was stalwart, strong, dependable and the hardest-working man I have ever known.  He was intelligent and well-read, a diesel mechanic, and a man unafraid to tackle huge projects.  Even among folks who knew and appreciated hard manual labor, Johnny was a standout.

Over his lifetime, Johnny played hard and he worked hard, undaunted about taking on projects that most would not.  Once when we visited, we got the full skinny on his restoration of a 1959 GMC pickup, which he showed with pride; another time, he took on the project of dismantling by hand a large doublewide mobile home.  As Patty remarked, “John enjoyed working more than most people enjoy playing”.

His generosity extended to anyone who needed a hand; he jumped right in to help in whatever way was needed, and at 87, his willingness and ability continued unabated.  Although the occasion never arose, I harbored no doubt that anything I asked of John, he would do his utmost to accomplish.

One of our most memorable interactions occurred when we allowed Dad to talk us into a camping trip that required a drive up Crown King Trail.  I emphasize the trail part because that indeed was the highest designation you could give to the route.  In the process, our spare tire was ripped from the pickup’s undercarriage on a road so brutal that we didn’t even notice.  John’s sideview mirror was destroyed along with a tire - that on a fully loaded nearly new pickup.  I think he shook his head at all of us catering to Dad getting us into that predicament.

The antics of the female contingent of that trip while the male contingent was working to replace tires so we could get home again let Johnny's disappointment show when he expressed surprise that I had not prepared a campfire dinner while they were away.  Instead, Patty & I with my daughter Sara had availed ourselves with a long leisurely back-country wander.  It was a bit like being chastised by my father; who knew that Johnny actually expected better of me!

I remember one of the times they visited us in Prescott when John wanted to find and point out with pride his brother Clifton Thomas Williams' name on the WWII memorial at Prescott’s Courthouse Square.  

Johnny was deeply appreciative when we took him to his uncle Robert Lee Williams' grave at a private cemetery near Walnut Grove.

Johnny was the last of a generation of pioneer Arizonans, Prescottonians who made a positive contribution to this region, and truthfully, he was as unique a man as can be imagined - a man whom I had somehow wanted to always have in my life.

Others can tell Johnny’s story more completely, as for me, I can say that he had a profound impact on my life, and I am saddened to lose him.  He was a man of great integrity, humor, wisdom and generosity, a man who made a mark in the world.  I am better for having known him.