Services Set For Trisha Lenore Williams, 69

CHICAGO, IL -- Trisha Lenore Williams was born on February 3, 1950 at Cook County Hospital, Chicago, to Vida Mae Donaldson and Tyree Williams. Her mother Vida Mae knew that Trisha had a special story to tell, because according to Vida Mae, Trisha was “born with her eyes wide open." When Vida Mae would recount Trisha’s entry into the world, she always ended with, “what baby do you know that comes (here) just staring at everybody in the room, and not cryin’ a lick?”

At age two, Trisha went to live with grandparents Daniel and Clementine Donaldson-Campbell in Muskogee, Oklahoma. She attended Phyllis Wheatley Elementary, Manual Training High School, and matriculated a semester early, in 1971, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Northeastern University at Tahlequah, OK.

Trisha returned to a lifelong Chicago residency, where she began her career with the State of Illinois’s Department of Revenue as a corporation tax auditor, and continuing as Senior Revenue Auditor with the City of Chicago. A voracious reader and diarist, and never meeting an exam that she couldn’t crush to bits, Trisha, while working full time, was accepted and attended DePaul Law School, and awarded her Juris Doctor in 1983; three months after graduating, she passed the Illinois State Bar at the first seating, known as one of the toughest state bars in the country. Trisha’s love of haute couture was renowned among family, friends, and coworkers; Vogue and Women’s Wear Daily were always part of her ritual reading.

Trisha was “northern by birth, and southern by God’s grace”, but quintessentially a Chicagoan, immersed in her career pursuits, enjoying art fairs, music festivals, street performances. Trisha, and her sister Lynetta (Net), also enjoyed writing and performing their blues music in and around Chicago and on the country’s “Blues Tours” circuit.

Trisha started life in Bronzeville, the product of the Great Migration’s “Second Wave”, residing in South Shore, the Gold Coast, Chatham, and returning to Bronzeville where she resided until her passing from pancreatic cancer on May 25, 2019.

Trish is survived by her sisters, Lynetta (Net) Edwards, Alice Singleton, and her nieces Marissa Huber and Latoya Lawson.

A memorial for Trisha will be held on Friday, June 28, 2019, from 6:00pm-8:00pm, at St. Mark AME Zion Church, 7358 S Cottage Grove Ave, Chicago, IL.

“As long as you are in our hearts, you will never be forgotten” – ‘Net’

Submitted by her loving sister,

Alice Singleton