Minnie Lee Williams

Minnie was born near a small town in Oklahoma about 60 miles east of Oklahoma City, called Weleekta were her Grandmother lived. Minnie primarily lived with her abusive father, a migrant farm worker, until she was 16 years old. Her mother left her father after her youngest sister, Cardella was born. Her father and sisters and brother moved among the states of Oklahoma, Texas, California and New Mexico seeking work. They primarily harvested cotton. Minnie’s father and stepmother Opal and others raised her and her siblings until she was 16. At 16, Minnie sought to find her mother and left rural Clayton, OK and ended up in a rural community near Dallas, Texas. She later located her mother working in Ft. Huachuca, AZ. Minnie moved again and worked with her grandmother and mother, Eleanor and Roberta, to raised enough to open a restaurant. Minnie assisted in opening the restaurant in Tucson during 1940 and worked there until 1943. Minnie Smith was 19 when she married Roscoe Williams on June 29, 1943.

Her half-sister, Versie, and Versie’s husband lived in Richmond, CA and invited Minnie to learn to press clothes at a dry cleaners in San Francisco. After being taught clothes pressing by her brother-in-law, Minnie worked at a dry cleaners in Richmond making $50 per week. Bertrand stayed with her aunt Versie during the day. During 1943-1950, Minnie worked in Richmond and helped her mother in Tucson, intermittingly. She stayed in close contact with her mother in Tucson and Roscoe’s Aunt Hazel in Richmond during these years. Minnie purchased the family’s first auto, a 1939 2-door Chevrolet during 1946. All Minnie’s three children were born in Tucson. During pregnancy with her son Fred, Mr. Donnie, Roberta, and her daughters—Bertrand and Francis were involved in an auto crash. Francis was killed and the rest severely injured but survived. When her husband, Roscoe returned from overseas duty in 1953, they took their family to Germany, Ft. Ord, CA, Ft. Wainwright, AK, Ft. Leonard Wood, MO and then settled in Albuquerque, NM.

Minnie started oil painting landscapes in 1978, but her passion remains reading the Bible today.