Dallas Morning News Article

10-13-02 Benefactor Leaves Legacy for the Living By Curtis Howell Mounds of cut daffodils line the bridge leading to Connemara, a 72-acre nature preserve in Plano. Frances Montgomery Williams, the benefactor and founder of the Connemara Conservancy, died at her home in Allen on Sunday after an extended illness. She was 77. The flowers were placed by artists, who had completed works for the 22nd annual Connemara Sculpture Show, after they heard of Ms. Williams' death. "It's a wonderful tribute," said daughter Amy Monier, who has been at her mother's right hand since the conservancy was founded in 1981 and who established the sculpture exhibitions that have made Connemara internationally famous. Sherry Owens, a Dallas sculptor who has displayed at Connemara, said Mrs. Williams was welcoming of everyone. "I remember seeing her riding her horse and talking to all of the artists installing their work," Ms. Owens said. "She is really going to be missed." Ms. Williams' legacy - pristine open spaces that will never feel a bulldozer and will forever be open for people to enjoy -remains. Ms. Williams made sure. "She was a champion for a cause before we knew it was a cause. She knew it before we did," Ms. Monier said. The conservancy is one of the oldest land trusts in Texas. And of the hundreds of acres the trusts protect, the best known is probably the meadow in Plano, known to everyone as Connemara. "The thing I remember most is how much she loved the land," said Scott White, conservancy spokesman. "She loved being out there on it. It had been in her family since the early 1900s." Protecting land became a cause for Ms. Williams early on. "She based her life on something she learned from her mother," Ms. Monier said. "Never do a job that someone else can do just as well. Find something that you can do better." By the mid-1970s, Ms. Monier said, her mother came to realize that the meadow she had loved so much as a child would most likely end up as a suburban neighborhood unless something was done to protect it. The meadow was part of a larger family holding that was originally a gift from Ms. Williams' father to her mother in 1919. Her mother loved the Collin County spot because it reminded her of the Cotswalds, pastoral country in southwestern England. In April 1996, Ms.Williams told The Dallas Morning News: "If we don't preserve the land, eventually all we will have is city, and we will regret it. We are bringing up a whole generation who don't know how to be outside." Had she lived, Ms. Monier said, her mother would have carried open space preservation to the state level and made it a priority for the Legislature. But conservation was not Ms. Williams' only cause. She was a founder of the Park Cities Association of Children with Learning Disabilities, a member of the Dallas Shakespeare Club, Founders Garden Club and League of Women Voters. Few people realize Ms. Williams? role in founding the Children's association, her daughter said, because when others came along who were capable and willing to continue the work, Ms. Williams would move on to another cause without fanfare. "She had such a wide circle of friends across so many causes," Ms. Monier said. "She grew up in a world of great privilege, but she never took anything for granted." Ms. Williams graduated from the Hockaday School in Dallas and had a bachelor's degree from Vasser College and a master's from Harvard Business School. "Mom was my business partner," said son Philip Williams. "For a woman who never held a job, she gave me the best business advice I've ever received." Following a discussion some years ago about women's liberation, Ms. Monier said her mother told her: "I'm the most liberated woman in the world. I can work on whatever I want to." David Behm, the conservancy's executive director, met Ms. Williams years ago when she was researching ways to set up a land trust. "She was a visionary," he said, "certainly one of the leaders in land conservancy." And Ms. Monier's favorite photograph of Ms. Willimas is one that doesn't even show her mother's face. Shot from behind, the photo shows Ms. Williams bouncing down a farm road on a tractor, holding her hat on with one hand. "That's mother," Ms. Monier said. "That's the essence of mother." Ms. Williams is survived by her husband, Bryan Williams; a brother, Philip Montgomery; children, Harrison Williams of Houston, Philip Williams of Dallas, Lincoln Williams of Dallas, Bryan Nicholas Williams of North Carolina, Ms. Monier of Dallas, and Margaret Williams of Boston; and eight grandchildren. Services were held on Tuesday, March 12, 2002. Memorials may be made to the Connemara Conservancy, 6625 Ridgeview Circle, Dallas, Texas, 75240.

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