Williams Family Papers

The Williams family appeared to be a middle-class African American family from Atlanta, Georgia. While not much information is known about other members, Barbara Adeline Williams, née McClarin, was born October 10, 1896, to Lewis and Mary Francis (née Liddell) McClarin in Cedartown, Georgia. Lewis McClarin served as a pastor at several African Methodist Episcopal (A. M. E.) churches in Georgia, while Mary Francis was a teacher, most likely at a country school, in Gwinnett County, Georgia. Adeline, as she preferred to be called, had three siblings, all of whom succumbed to either the measles or whooping cough while she was around three and a half years old, shortly after the passing of her father. As the only surviving child of Mary Francis, young Adeline was sent to Morris Brown College, where her teacher was Mrs. Mattie Ford. In 1904, Adeline lost her mother, and began to live with her grandmother, Adeline Liddell, a formerly enslaved person of Union F. Gholston in Gwinnett County. They attended both Saint Paul Episcopal and Big Bethel A. M. E. in Atlanta. On June 12, 1912, Adeline McClarin received a diploma from the Higher Normal Course at Morris Brown College, and on September 12 of the same year, she married William Walker. They had one son, Oswell Arthur Walker, born on December 30, 1913. The following year, her grandmother passed away, and she also lost her husband sometime between 1915 and 1924. Barbara married her second husband, W. G. Williams, on February 4, 1924. They moved to the west side of Atlanta in 1927, joining Flipper Temple A. M. E. Church, and Barabara began attending evening nursing school at B. W. H. (unknown initials), the same place she later earned her high school diploma in 1933.