Part of the American History & Genealogy Project

Theresa A. Riopelle Williams 1853 ~

Mrs. Theresa A. Williams, temperance worker and philanthropist, was born September 22, 1853, in Detroit, Michigan, and is the daughter of J. A. and Martha Hepburn Riopelle. She is descended on her mother's side from the Clements of New England, through whom she has common ancestry with Frances E. Willard, and on her father's side with the well-known French family of Riopelles, of Detroit.

She was blest with a liberal education and a broad and generous public spirit. She was married to Henry E. Williams on November 15, 1876, residing for many years in Washington, D. C. Mr. Williams is assistant chief of the United States weather bureau and has always been in the fullest accord with her temperance and philanthropic work.

Mrs. Williams is prominently connected with the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the District of Columbia, which she joined in 1882, and is official parliamentarian for that body. She is president of Chapin Union, its pioneer auxiliary, and was for many years district treasurer. She was so efficient that an article printed in the daily papers giving a sketch of the officers who planned the great national convention of 1900 called her the "Sherman Financier." She served for ten years as treasurer of the National Missionary Association of the Universalist Church of which society she is now the president.

Women of America

Source: The Part Taken by Women in American History, By Mrs. John A. Logan, Published by The Perry-Nalle Publishing Company, Wilmington, Delaware, 1912.