Ilene Woster-Williams

Ilene Woster-Williams passed away at her home in Anchorage, Alaska, of liver cancer on Nov. 10, 2009. Interment will be in the spring at Angeles Memorial Cemetery, Anchorage.

Ilene Martha Woster was born on Feb. 21, 1947, at St. Johns Hospital in Longview, Wash. The second child born to Edwin O. Woster and Minnie (nee' Moseng) Woster, she was descended on all four sides from Norwegian emigrants who settled in North Dakota. Two of Ilene's pre-school years were spent in Corpus Christ, Texas, where Ed Woster was a leader for the start-up of the San Patricio plant of Reynolds Metals Aluminum Company.

Ilene was a 1965 graduate of Columbia Falls and attended the University of Montana. Her early employment was at a fur coat firm in Sydney, Australia. Ilene's professional life also included brief work on a political campaign in Helena, as an aide to lawyers on Wall Street and a position with the now Park Avenue-based law firm Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt and Mosle. Later, Ilene moved to Anchorage and branched into oil firms, which led to work in offices at Point Barrow and Prudhoe Bay. Once she was trapped on an ice flow and narrowly escaped.

On July 11, 1987, Ilene married Gary Williams, who was in pipeline management and is now retired. A side pursuit was learning the art of hat making that took her to understudy the art in Tennessee for a time. Ilene throughout her work years also continued in-depth research in 1800s U.S. history that included a sojourn to Freer, Texas, near Corpus Christi, and she renewed this pursuit on return to Anchorage.

Ilene was preceded in death by her parents and her brother Eric Woster.

She is survived by her husband Gary; her sister Miss Carol Woster of Cut Bank; her brother Edwin Woster of Columbia Falls; uncle Harold Moseng and aunt Charlotte Moseng-Borud, both of Minot, N.D.; sister-in-law Julie Adolf of Anchorage; many cousins in the U.S. and third cousins in Norway; beloved friends JoAnn Bauman of Missoula; Sally (nee' Lokken) Hoppe of Spokane; Kay Foster of Freer, Texas; Jean Huggard of New York City and Long Island; Danny Kennedy of Anchorage; and other treasured individuals.