Ione Williams

Ione Etta McEathron Williams, 99, has passed from her temporary life on earth into her eternal life in Heaven in her 100th year. Ione died at Acorn Hill Senior Living Community, Mosinee, on November 23, 2017. Nurtured by her parents, Rev. Alexander and Ida McEathron, in her belief that Jesus Christ is our personal Savior, Ione was baptized at age 10 in the Chippewa River by her father. She began to serve the Lord by teaching children's Sunday School classes, acting as Sunday School secretary, and becoming active in Christian Endeavor at Highbanks Church of Christ, rural Holcombe, one of many churches her circuit-riding father started in northwestern Wisconsin. Ione was born September 14, 1918 in Hillsdale, Barron County, WI. The family moved to the Mud Brook Valley, west of Holcombe, when she was 2 A½, where she lived until her marriage to George Williams of Sugar Grove. She graduated from Ladysmith High School in 1937. Ione and George were married on Christmas Day, 1938, by her father. After George returned from WWII, they raised three daughters on the Williams Family Century Farm at Sugar Grove. Ione called Sugar Grove Church of Christ her home church for almost 80 years, from 1939 until her death. For many years, she taught Junior and Adult Sunday School classes and Daily Vacation Bible School for children. She also served for 70 years as a member of the American Legion Auxiliary of Hamilton-Harris Post 447, Viola, since 1948. Ione was a very good wife, mother, grandmother and homemaker. Even through the hard times of life, she was always loving, gentle, cheerful, and kind. She was dearly loved by her daughters and their families for her thoughtful expressions of love for them, day after day, in many ways. She worked very hard alongside her husband doing the farm work. She set tobacco, shocked oats, drove the tractor pulling a hayloader and haywagon behind it, milked cows, fed calves, raised piglets, and butchered chickens. She canned and froze food from two large gardens and gathered more from the woods and byroads. Many long hours of the growing season were devoted to filling the cellar shelves with jars of fruits and vegetables, jams and jellies. Though she was always working on her feet without rest, she managed to steal time here and there to use her endless creative gifts from a mind that never rested. Her poetry was awarded Editor's Choice in 1994 and 1995 by the National Library of Poetry and published in their anthologies. Her oil paintings, watercolors, chalk drawings, seed pictures, and wood carvings are hanging on many family walls. She published an autobiography at age 70, titled Living In The Mud Brook Valley. Her pursuit of genealogy and local history produced several articles included in Vernon County Heritage and History volumes. She enjoyed passing on family history to her children through storytelling that included her Scotch-Irish ancestry. She won the "Best Tatted Item" prize at the county fair. Her tatting, knitting, crocheting, and rug hooking skills beautified her home and those of her daughters. She designed and sewed, with and without patterns, most clothing for herself and her children. She bonded with and delighted her grandchildren by making stuffed animals, Easter baskets, doll clothes, darling outfits of their own, and patchwork quilts for their beds. From her frugal habits, the least bit of scrap cloth, yarn, lace, or twice-used objects could take on beauty in her hands. Last, but not least, she was athletic. Growing up with two older brothers, she had a command of skiing, ice skating, foot racing, canoeing, rifle hunting, fishing, and even touch football. Spending most of her childhood time outdoors, she grew to love nature and felt a deep joy in the beauty of God's creation. As a mother, she taught her children to identify tree leaves, wildflowers, bird songs, edible nuts and berries, insects, and animal tracks on walks in the woods and fields of the farm. She also loved to sing the praises of the Lord as she walked and talked. "Without Him I would not be," she would say. At age 71, lone sold the farm after George's death from lung cancer on July 2, 1990. She moved to Valley View Apts. in Readstown, where she lived 14 years. When she was 86, her children moved her to Mosinee in August, 2004, to be safely near them. Ione is survived by her three daughters and their husbands: Patricia (Carl Przychocki) Herschberger of Mosinee, Jean (Rick) Madden, Stevens Point, and Eloise (Robert) Moodie, Plover. Also five grandchildren and nine great -grandchildren: Marie (Heath) Martens and daughter Sophie, Daniel (Emily) Herschberger and son Dennis, Melissa (Clayton) LaBelle and children Heather and Nathen, Scott Moodie, and brother John (Annmarie) Moodie, whose children are Lily, Claire, Ava, Noah, and Ethan. One sister-in- law, Faerie Jane Sellenberg (Elmer McEathron), South Bend, Indiana, and many nieces and nephews. Besides her husband and parents, Ione was preceded in death by brother Donald McEathron and wife Etta, brother Elmer McEathron and first wife Esther, half-brother Gayle McEathron and wife Anna, half-sister Garnet McEathron, two sons-in-law Dennis Herschberger and Wayne Dahl, plus several nieces and nephews. Burial will take place in the Sugar Grove Cemetery immediately following the 11:00 service at Sugar Grove Church of Christ, four miles east of Readstown on Hwy. 14. An hour of visitation from 10 to 11 at the church will precede the funeral on Saturday, December 2.