Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 1, 1994 TAG: 9403010216
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By MELISSA DeVAUGHN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The 52-year old librarian, who worked in Montgomery County Public Schools for the past 23 years, died last Wednesday after a long fight against breast cancer. She had been ill since June 1990.
"Issy had a vision that all children would love to read," said Janice Roback, the school's principal. "She read to them every week."
This is not the first time the children at Christiansburg Elementary School have been faced with the untimely death of a teacher. Last September, third-grade teacher Emily Bowles was killed in a car crash on U.S. 460.
"Of course, this has been a difficult year," Roback said. "But all we can do is try to be positive and go on ... to support the children and let them know that death is natural."
Roback said the children knew Williamson was sick - that's the way the librarian wanted it to be.
"She prepared them herself," Roback said. "She was open about it and it has helped them so much."
Williamson, a native of Grayson, Ky., attended Union College in Barberville, Ky., for two years. She then moved to Montgomery County to marry Jim Williamson, whom she had met during college.
After having two children, Robby and Diann, she returned to college at Radford University, where she received an undergraduate degree in library science and later a graduate degree in media. Her first job in Montgomery County was as a librarian at Shawsville Elementary School.
"She was an avid reader and consumed books," Jim Williamson said of his wife of almost 33 years. For her to become a librarian seemed the most logical profession, and sometimes she would read more than a dozen books a week, he said. He recalled one of their apartments - located directly above a library - in which his wife could simply walk downstairs whenever she wanted to read something new.
At Christiansburg Elementary, where she last worked, Williamson made many friends, most of them children. Not only was she responsible for the books, but she taught each child how to use a library: the Dewey decimal system, card cataloging and author searches. She also worked in updating the library with computers, and maintained the school's media center.
"She had great energy and enthusiasm for her job," Roback said. "She worked all the way to the end, until two weeks before she died."
Jim Williamson said his wife was a strong, happy woman, who probably lengthened her fight against cancer to hold out for the birth of her first grandchild, 1-month-old Eliza Eaton, daughter of Diann and Marc Eaton.
The funeral was held last Saturday. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the Christiansburg Elementary School Library, Wades Lane, Christiansburg, Va., 24073 or the Christiansburg Branch of the Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library, 125 Sheltman St., Christiansburg, Va., 24073.
by CNB