Beloved wife, mother, grandmother, sister, and aunt passed peacefully on October 26 after a lengthy illness, battling post-Covid and memory issues. She was but a few months before a planned 80th birthday celebration.
Annie Young McWilliams, born on December 19, 1942, in Eufaula, Alabama, was the first child of Mary Josephine Young McWilliams and Jack Hugh McWilliams.
She graduated in 1960 from Mt. Lebanon High School and attended Shorter University and Duquesne University. She graduated from Regent University with a degree in Christian education.
Her career in journalism began as features editor at the Virginia-Pilot in Norfolk, Virginia. In Georgia she served as public affairs officer for the Polk School District in Cedartown and as a literacy counselor for the Floyd County Library Association. While her daughter Katie completed a diploma in Cobb County, she worked with the Public Housing Authority in Marietta, Georgia, as a resident advocate.
Public service for the poor and powerless was her mantra. Annie was a resident for the past three decades in Franklin, Tennessee, with her husband Jimmy Dwight Middleton, and was past director of the Boys and Girls Club and an associate of Target locally.
Her gardening skills made their residence at Orleans Estates the envy of her neighbors and friends. Her wide-ranging activism included civil rights, women’s rights and permaculture.
Caring and literate, her voice on these issues will be sorely missed.
She is preceded in death by her parents and her brother, John William McWilliams.
She is deeply mourned by her husband Jimmy and his family, and most profoundly, by her daughter Katie Harriet McWilliams Figueras and her husband Derrick, her grandson Iniko McWilliams Figueras, her sister Laura McWilliams Lester, her nieces, Mary David Lester and Annie Shay Lester, and her nephew, John Lawrence Lester.
She was cremated and a memorial service is to be held at a later date.
