Katherine “Kay” Williams Brown

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution announces with great sorrow the death of former employee Katherine “Kay” Williams Brown on March 7, 2024, at the Sedgewood Commons Nursing Home in Falmouth, Maine. She was 94.

Born in 1930 to Addie Louise Ringer Williams and Reverend Dr. John Paul Williams, Kay graduated from Oakwood Friends School in 1947 and from Mount Holyoke College in 1951 with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy.

Kay worked for many years at the NYC Dept of Social Services. After relocating to Cape Cod, she worked at New Alchemy Institute. She began her career at WHOI in 1990 as a staff assistant I in the Geology & Geophysics Department. She was promoted to a staff assistant II in 1994 and retired in 1999.

Kay was extremely active in her Quaker community including as a member of the Sandwich Monthly Meeting as well as with the New England Yearly Meeting where she co-founded the Working Party on Racism and was a member of the Racial, Social, and Economic Justice Committee. Kay’s other community activism included participation in Cape Codders Against Racism and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).

Kay was pre-deceased by her husband of 40 years, Bill Brown. She is survived by her sister, Sarah (Sally) Williams and her four children: Sharon Smith, Bill Smith (Mary Gazda), Judi Urquhart (Gordon Harris), and Justin Brown (Julie Fineman); six grandchildren: Maya Smith, Matthew Smith, Jeremy Smith, Zoë Harris, Alyssa Harris, and Noah Brown; and one great grandson, David Orozco.

A celebration of Kay’s life will take place in the manner of Friends (Quaker) at Barnstable Friends Meeting, 2 Doctor Lords Road, Route 6A and Sesuit Neck Road, Dennis, Mass., on Sunday July 14 at 2 p.m. For more information, contact Rachel at BarnstableFriends@aol.com or go to http://quakersofthelight.blogspot.com

Information for this obituary is from the Falmouth Enterprise