W. A. Williams, son of G. B. M. and Jane Williams, was born on a farm eight miles south of Buffalo, Sep. 16, 1882.  He was always a quiet, industrious boy and in school work a model pupil.  At the age of sixteen years he began teaching in the rural schools of the county and between terms attended the State Normal at Warrensburg where he made rapid advancement.  As a teacher, his services were in demand and during the last two terms he taught in the county he received the highest wages ever paid by a rural school of Dallas County up to that time.  In April 1909, he was elected county school commissioner and in the following August qualified as county superintendent, the law creating the office of superintendent taking effect during the later month.  At the annual school election in 1911 he was reelected superintendent without opposition.  While it was not an easy matter to put into effect the provisions of the new law creating the office of Superintendent, Mr. Williams succeeded in a highly creditable way and we make the assertion with the feeling that all will agree that no officer in the history of Dallas county gave more universal satisfaction than did Mr. Williams.
 Desiring to better equip himself along certain lines, last June he entered the State Normal at Springfield where he spent eleven weeks and where it is thought he contracted the disease that ended in death.
 Mr. Williams had never married and for some time had been rooming in his residence property on North Maple St. and taking his meals up town.  When he became sick, two nurses were employed, one by the I.O.O.L. and one by the K. of P. lodges to care for him and he was at no time without careful attention.  His popularity with the people of the town making them always solicitous of his welfare.  The great kindness and solicitude of Miss. Shirley McDowell, to whom it is generally understood he was betrothed and who dismissed her school that she might soothe and make easier his last days, was very commendable.  These acts of kindness are mentioned with the hope that knowledge of them may to some extent alleviate their sorrow of his parents, brothers and sisters who from their far-away home could not reach Buffalo until after his passing.
 At ten-o’clock Sunday morning the body, accompanied by the Pythian Sisters, K. of P. I. O. O. F. and Woodmen lodges, was borne to the Baptist Church where he was wont to frequently go to take active part in worship, and there the pastor, Rev. Drumwright preached a short but highly appropriate sermon to the largest crowd ever gathered in Buffalo on a similar occasion.  The body was then laid to rest in the City cemetery and as the soil covered the last of one whom we had known intimately since babyhood ad one whom we had learned to love and respect, we were reminded of these words from the pen of the late Bob Taylor and which we once heard our late friend reverently read:
 "The flowers of the field rising from countless graves; the unfolding leaves of the forest heralding the approach of summer; the orchid and the meadows bursting into bloom and myriads of winged minstrels filling the world with melody are all the evangels of the Lord, demonstrating before our very eyes the universal victory of life over death."
 "My friend look how the rose hears the far-away call of the sun and blushes in the presence of its God.  Look how the violet comes forth from its tiny tomb and opens its glad blue eyes to greet the spring.  Are they not God’s own answer to the question, ‘If a man die shall he live again?�?BR> "If the germs of inanimate life, buried beneath the sod, so surely respond to the silent commands of summer, who can doubt that man shall spring up out of the unconscious dust into eternal life when God shall call?  Can it be that the flowers and grass are resurrected from the sod of earth, while man, for whom they were made, must sleep on forever?"