Children's author Vera Williams of Narrowsburg dies at 88

NARROWSBURG - Vera B. Williams, the award-winning children’s author, artist and activist, died Friday after a long illness. She was 88.

Williams, whose most famous book is “A Chair for My Mother,” was about to be honored Saturday with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance, said DVAA Executive Director Elaine Giguere, who noted that Williams had been working on a new book just days before she died. A retrospective of her life and work is on display at the Arts Alliance. It is fittingly titled: “Art, Pleasure, Politics and Making a Living: 60 Years of Vera B. Williams’ Works.”

“She had lots and lots of life in her, and she filled every minute of it,” said Giguere.

Williams won many national honors, including having “A Chair for My Mother” named one of the best 100 books of the past century by the New York Public Library.

She made national news for her anti-war activities when, in 1981, she spent time in a federal prison after she was arrested for helping blockade the Pentagon. She also helped start an alternative school in New York City.

She loved the tiny Delaware River hamlet where she spent so much of her final years. And she was almost speechless in July, after her original poster for Narrowsburg’s Riverfest set an auction record when it sold for $2,600.

“I’m very moved for people to value my work so much, and I’m happy for the DVAA (which the auction benefits) because it means so much to the town,” she said at the time.

sisrael@th-record.com