Douglas Hocker Williams

Doug Williams passed away peacefully on October 22, 2021, in the Swarthmore home he shared with his daughter, Sarah Komarinski, and her family. 

Doug was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on November 7, 1928, the only child of Harold Chapin Williams and Elizabeth Toomb (Wilson) Williams. Their home in Hatboro had been designed and built by his father and three uncles, all carpenters by trade, and was shared with his aunt during Doug’s earliest years. His mother taught in one-room schoolhouses in and around Newtown while Doug attended Buckingham Friends School in Lahaska and the George School in Newtown. These Friends schools instilled in him a lifelong love of learning and an interest in people around the world. 

In 1950, Doug’s parents purchased the Rushland schoolhouse from the district. Doug and his father transformed that one-room schoolhouse into a two-story home, surrounding it with vast gardens. Doug was drafted into the army that year and stationed in Germany. While he was there, during off-duty hours he would regularly bicycle into town to meet people and make friends. Many years later, he returned to introduce them to his wife, Suzanne Elizabeth (Whitney) Williams. Doug and Suzanne had met at a University of Rochester lecture, and from then on shared their interest in culture through books, lectures, music, food, travel, and good company. 

Doug held electrical and physics engineering degrees from Lehigh and Bucknell universities. At Kodak, in Rochester, New York, where he worked for 33 years, he quietly focused on developing groundbreaking testing programs and designs for taking high-resolution photographs in the upper atmosphere and low orbital space. These complex designs required novel approaches that led to many technological advances as the country prepared for space exploration and the first lunar landings.

Doug and Sue raised four daughters, sharing with them their love of culture and learning. Sue’s untimely death and Doug’s retirement led him back, first, to that Bucks County schoolhouse, and eventually to Sarah’s Swarthmore home. Here, he could walk into town—saying hello and admiring gardens as he went—to meet new friends and spend hours reading in the library or taking courses at Swarthmore College. Doug had an inquisitive mind: he read the newspaper cover-to-cover every day and would often search for just the right article or book to lend to a visitor. His was a long life filled with simple pleasures. To honor his memory, we ask that you read a book you would not normally read, talk with someone with whom you would not normally converse, or take an extra second or two—or three, or four—to enjoy a good piece of chocolate.

Doug is survived by his daughters, Karen Osterhoudt (Tom), Ellen Avant, Sarah Komarinski (Scott), and Claire McLear (Rob); 10 grandchildren; brother-in-law Roy Whitney (Fay); and friends made over a lifetime. 

He will be buried beside his wife Suzanne in Rochester, NY, where a celebration of his life will be held in the spring.