Earlene Williams Stephenson

Earlene Williams Stephenson

Earlene Williams Stephenson, 87, died on Friday, Nov. 28, 2025.  
She grew up in the Shiloh community near Hamilton, Ala., and graduated from Hamilton High School in 1956, graduated from Florence State College, now the University of North Alabama, with a BS degree in history and government in 1959 and received a Master of Arts degree in history from the University of Alabama in 1963.  
She taught elementary school and was a substitute teacher in Houston, Texas, in the 1980s and 1990s.  She accompanied her husband Ralph on a number of foreign assignments living in London, England; Port Harcourt, Nigeria; and Yokohama, Japan. Ralph and Earlene traveled to Europe and Asia, and had a wonderful life together filled with love, adventure and prosperity. They especially treasured the year and a half they lived in Japan, traveling extensively and enjoying the culture. They climbed Mt. Fuji, and celebrated the changing of the centuries during New Year’s 2000 in Yokohama.
They retired on a six acre tract in a park like setting in the Sam Houston National Forest in Willis, Texas, in 2006 after having lived in Houston since 1980. They had a house built to their exact specifications for their retirement.
She is survived by her loving husband of 51 years, Ralph; one sister, Elaine McDaniel; brother Jerry Williams; three daughters, Seana Stephenson, Adreanne Collier; and two sons, Noah and Lowell Stephenson, as well as nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
She was predeceased by her parents, Travis B. and Bessie Harper Williams; her brothers, Orbie Lee, Waymon and Ivan; daughter, Michelle Collier; and sister, Marie Sandlin.    
Celebration of Life services will be held at the Hamilton Funeral Home in Hamilton, Ala., on Jan. 13, 2026, at 1:30 p.m. She will be interred at the Shiloh Baptist Church Cemetery alongside many other family members after the service.

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