Jim was born and raised in Livingston, Alabama, to Sidney James Williams, Sr., MD, and Ludie McKay Williams. He passed away peacefully in Fairfax, VA.
He is survived by his sister, Letitia Krebs; daughter, Elizabeth McCarthy (Daniel); son, Robert Williams (Caroline), and grandchildren Maddy, Sylvia, and Calvin Williams.
He attended Livingston High School, received his BA from Davidson College, his MA and Ph.D. from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
After graduation, he moved to Lexington, Virginia, where he taught at Washington & Lee University (W&L) for 40 years; he became one of the youngest tenured professors there. He served as Chair of the Romance Language Dept., his specialty being Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote, which he loved to read and teach. While at W&L, he helped set up the foreign studies program and developed the popular seminar course Latin American Detective Fiction, which incorporated one of his favorite genres, mysteries. Students were known to say that he was a tough but fair professor and that they always came away from his classes having learned something.
He loved to perform music, and when he was in high school, he would play piano while his fellow students danced. He also would play occasionally for services at Livingston Presbyterian Church. He could play music by ear; once he heard a piece, he could perform it. While in Lexington, he occasionally accompanied student recitals and played percussion with the local community orchestra in Rockbridge County. He also loved to cook and could recreate a dish without a recipe after eating it. Additionally, he served as an elder at Lexington Presbyterian Church.
There will be a graveside service, and he will be buried at Myrtlewood Cemetery in Livingston, AL. on Friday, October 3, at 10 AM.