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Dakin Williams dies in Illinois; to be honored at 16th festival
 CLARKSDALE - Dakin Williams may have lived in the shadow of his famous playwright brother, but he was an exciting, caring, colorful, flamboyant, and unpredictible character in his own right, attest many who knew him at Clarksdale’s Tennessee Williams Festival.
The attorney, author, politician, amateur actor, and "professional brother" of Tennessee Williams died Tuesday, May 20, at Dammert Geriatric Center at Our Lady of Snows in Belleville, Ill. He was 89.
For more than 10 years Dakin Williams was a favorite festival speaker in Clarksdale’s historic district where his older brother spent his childhood living with their grandparents. Their grandfather, Walter Dakin, for whom Dakin was named, was rector of St. George’s Episcopal Church for 16 years.
Festival organizers were notified Thursday of his death by his daughter Francesca Williams of Collinsville, Ill. He will be honored at the 16th annual festival Sept. 26-27, which is being featured as a documentary by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
Although ill heath prevented Dakin from participating in festivals for the past several years, his daughter says he remained active and even went to Carmine’s restaurant in downtown St. Louis with friends the night before he died.
"What shocking news! I just thought he’d live forever, I guess," comments prominent literary scholar Kenneth Holditch in New Orleans. "He was a remarkable man, a genius in his own right, I think, who, like William Faulkner’s brothers, lived in the shadow of his famous sibling."
Edwina Dodson, who contacted him each year about the festival and frequently invited him to visit socially with her family and friends at their home, says, "Dakin was a friend; we joked about our kinship because my name is the same as his mother’s."
"He had a great affinity for Clarksdale and his grandparents here," she continued.
 Reciting poetry on front porches in the Tennessee Williams Park beneath the angel statue reminiscent of his brother’s period play "Summer and Smoke," and on rainy days inside the historic depot, Clarksdale Station and the Civic Auditorium, Dakin Williams was a crowd magnet.
Festival volunteers agree that many were eager to experience his personality and connection with one of America’s great celebrities, but all became touched emotionally by his readings from the humorous "Gold-Toothed Woman" to the poignant final good-bye lines of his own brother to their sister Laura/Rose in "The Glass Menagerie."
Holditch says Dakin’s festival appearances imparted audiences with a feeling of being in touch with Tennessee through him.
"One of my most indelible memories of him – and I was with him dozens of times during the past 20 years was the occasion of a Clarksdale festival in which he began to cry as he talked about his grandparents, a very touching scene."
Colby Kullman, English professor at the University of Mississippi and a Williams Festival consultant, said he had fond memories of Dakin reading his brother’s poetry as well as his own.
"He was always warm, welcoming, kind in conversation, and could be very funny," he added
Although Dakin was eight years younger than his brother, he was not resentful of being overshadowed by him, according to his daughter.
In an article published Wednesday in the St. Louis Post –Dispatch, she is quoted saying he enjoyed the notoriety he received from his role as a "professional brother."
"I can’t say he was the life of the party, but he enjoyed celebrating life with people," she said.
Holditch, who enjoyed a distant cousin relationship with Dakin through the Sevier family, describes Dakin as "charming, entertaining, and totally unpredictable."
"The world of Tennessee Williams studies is sadly diminished this day," he said.
 Dakin Williams moved from St. Louis to Collinsville in the 1950s. He received a bachelor’s and law degrees from Washington University and was pursuing an MBA at Harvard when he was drafted into service in World War II.
He was an assistant U.S. attorney in East St. Louis before entering private practice. He made unsuccessful bids for the Democratic nomination for governor and for the U.S. Senate seat in the 1960s and 1970s.
In 2005 he and his wife Joyce celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, and she died later that year.
A prayer service and visitation wil be held from 4 to 8 p.m. Monday, May 26. at Herr Funeral Home in Collinsville, Ill. The funeral Mass is scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday, May 27, at St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Collinsville with burial in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.
Among his survivors in addition to his daughter Francesca are another daughter,
Anne Caserta of Delray Beach, Fla., and two granddaughters, also of Delray Beach. |
