Student shared talents

By Vanessa Renderman
Special Projects Editor

Anneliese Kay will miss the way her best friend and roommate, Laura M. Williams, used sarcasm to make people laugh.

"She was hilarious," Kay said.

Williams, a 21-year-old Purdue student and junior in the School of Consumer and Family Sciences, died earlier this week.

Kay, also a junior in the School of Consumer and Family Sciences, said she and Williams were best friends and knew each other since freshman year. The two spent almost every moment together.

"She worked with me, lived with me ... we were in the same major, we'd go shopping," Kay said.

Kay said they were so similar that sometimes Williams' sister, Nancy, would say they were the same person.

"We had a lot of the same characteristics I guess," she said.

Williams, who wanted to work with small children as a child life specialist or development specialist, was dedicated to her major, according to her mother.

"Even though this would be a difficult and trying profession, it only mattered to her 'that it would all be worth it' if only she could make a difference in the children's lives she would touch," Mrs. Williams said.

Mrs. Williams said her daughter Laura was an "A" student in grade school and middle school, and she graduated with honors from Chesterton High School, where she was also a member of the swim team.

Williams was a Girl Scout for 13 years and earned the Gold Award — the highest award a Girl Scout can receive — from the organization. Her mom said Williams gave back knowledge to the young scouts.

Mrs. Williams remembered that when her daughter was a child, she never wanted to miss a day of school and seldom did. "As a baby, she was quiet, never demanding and always beautiful," Mrs. Williams said.

As Williams grew older, she grew closer to family and friends. Mrs. Williams said, "If Laura had cared for you, it meant a lot. You had been well chosen. Her love of family and friends, I'm sure, extended to all."

In her immediate family, she precedes in death her parents, Linda and Robert; her brothers, Matt and John; her sister, Nancy; and her nephew, Johnny.

• Visitation was held Thursday. The funeral service will be at 10 a.m. today at Edmonds & Evans Funeral Home in Chesterton, Ind. She will be buried at Chesterton Cemetery.

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