Edward M. Williams

Rev. Edward Williams, OMI, age 86, died on November 23, 2016, at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Residence in Tewksbury, Massachusetts. Born in South Boston, he was a son of the late Edward L. Williams of South Boston and Mary Margaret (Conroy) Williams who was born in County Cork, Ireland. He was predeceased by a sister, Harriet Magro, and by four brothers, Thomas, Paul, David, and Michael.
Fr. Williams began his Oblate life in 1947 in Newburgh, New York, at the minor seminary, and moved on to the Oblate Novitiate in Ipswich, Massachusetts, from 1951-1952. He made his first profession of vows on September 8, 1952 in Essex, New York, where he later professed final vows on September 8, 1955. He was ordained to the priesthood in Washington, DC, on June 8, 1957.
Following ordination, Fr. Williams was assigned to the missions in Japan. He arrived on September 17, 1958, and spent the next two years learning the language at the Franciscan Language School in Roppongi, Tokyo. He spent 56 years in Japan. During much of that time, he was dedicated to parish ministry in several missions including Naruto, Itami, Hikarigaoka in Fukuoka, Nakajimacho in Kochi, Tokushima, Zendana, Koga, and Toyohashi. He oversaw the parish kindergarten in Kochi from 1967-1968, then in Itami from 1968-1980. He was principal of the parish kindergarten at Fukuoka and was a member of the Star of the Sea School Corporation. Fr. Williams only departed Japan twice in 56 years. In 1961, he was a USA Military Chaplain in Okinawa. In 1967, he traveled to Manila, Philippines to study. His final assignment in Japan took him back to Fukuoka for a third time. In May of 2014, he returned to the United States and settled into retirement at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Residence in Tewksbury.
On the fiftieth anniversary of the Oblates' mission in Japan on November 23, 1998 (which was the fortieth year of his ministry there), Fr. Williams wrote, "I'm glad I came and having another chance I'd do it all again."
In the spring of 2014, with the knowledge that he would soon depart Japan, Fr. Williams wrote a farewell to the people he had grown to love and had spent much of his life with. In his farewell, he took a look back at his time in Japan and a look forward to the future back in the States. He expressed it as "looking both ways before crossing the street". The "street" he referred to was the Pacific Ocean. To the people of Japan he said, "I am sure the wrenching of separation of leaving all of you and this wonderful mission will be changed into joy, as it says in the Gospel. Nonetheless, the tears always come first."
Fr. Williams is survived by four sisters, Margaret Amigo and Terri O'Brien of Billerica, Massachusetts; Marie Traywick and Ann Makarevich of Chelmsford, Massachusetts; a brother, Daniel Williams of Chester, New Jersey; and numerous nephews, nieces, grand-nephews, and grand-nieces.