Jean Ringeon Williams, associate professor of home economics emerita at the University of Akron in Ohio, died on March 12 in Chicago. She was 97 years old.
A native of Morehead, Minnesota, Williams grew up on a dairy farm outside Ridgeway, Iowa. She earned a bachelor’s degree in institutional management, with minors in science and family and child development at Iowa State University. After raising a family, Williams settled in Ohio where she worked in the Home Economics Child Development and Deaf Education Laboratory at Kent State University.
In 1969 she was recruited to the University of Akron’s early childhood education department where she was assistant head teacher, director of curriculum, and helped develop programs for the lab school. She received her master’s degree in special education from the University of Akron in 1972 and was promoted to assistant professor and assistant director of the lab school. She later became an associate professor in the department of home economics. She retired from the faculty in 1990.