VALDOSTA —
A long-time Valdosta businessman and one of the leading genealogists in South Georgia passed away this past weekend.
E.L. “Boe” Williams died Sunday after a long illness. He was 73 years old.
Williams opened the Country Cobbler shoe store 46 years ago in Valdosta. He was also chairman of South Georgia’s Huxford Genealogical Society.
In terms of the region’s history, Williams is said to have known more about South Georgia families than anyone else in the region.
“Boe has been the heart and soul of the Huxford Genealogical Society and South Georgia/ North Florida genealogy for many years,” said Donald O. Davis of the Lowndes County Historical Society Museum and a fellow Huxford Society officer. “He gave tremendous amounts of time and made sure that Judge Folks Huxford’s series ‘Pioneers of Wiregrass Georgia’ continued. Boe was known far and wide for his vast specific family knowledge in genealogy. He loved the stories of the pioneers, and knew of them as did Judge Huxford, that in building their lives, they built a nation.”
His interest in family histories may have stemmed from his own roots.
Williams described himself in a 2001 Times article as being part of “a large, multi-generational family. ... I stayed with my grandparents a lot. My great-grandmother lived with them, and she was one of 27 children.”
Family patriarch and Boe Williams’ great-great-grandfather, Andrew Elton Williams, lived from 1800-1873. From this number of children came 160 grandchildren.
Since 1903, the family has held a reunion in Waycross.
Based on his family, Williams wrote the book “Andrew Elton Williams: Ancestors, Contemporaries, Descendants and Allied Families.” Williams wrote numerous columns, articles, and other texts about regional families and history.
Boe Williams was born June 1, 1937, in Waycross. As a teenager, he moved to Florida.
He attended Florida State University. He opened his first shoe store in Tallahassee, Fla.
If history was his life, shoes were his livelihood. Williams once said, “I’ve been in the shoe business in one way or another since I was 13 years old.”
In 1964, Edwin L. “Boe” Williams and his wife, the former Carolyn Barrientos, moved to Valdosta and opened the Country Cobbler shore store. The store was originally located in Downtown Valdosta.
The downtown business had only 2,000 square feet and stocked about 4,000 pairs of shoes. Business grew.
A second store at Five Points followed. Both stores combined into a Valdosta mall location until moving into the Country Cobbler site on Gornto Road.
Additional stores opened in Waycross, Jacksonville, Fla., and Gainesville, Fla.
Williams earned the first Lifetime Achievement Award from the Southeast Shoe Travelers and National Shoe Charity in the late 1990s.
Though the stores grew and business expanded, Boe Williams strived for a personal touch in his stores.
“Department stores are a mile wide and an inch deep,” Williams is quoted as saying in Footwear News in 2000. “Specialty stores are a mile deep and an inch wide. We’re somewhere in between. We’ve created a personality in the store.”
Carolyn helped with the store daily. She passed away Aug. 31, 2003. Boe Williams passed away two days short of the seventh anniversary of Carolyn’s death. Williams had since remarried wife Carol.
His son Cason followed in Boe’s footsteps at Country Cobbler.
Named for the late Judge Folks Huxford, the Huxford Genealogical Society’s continued success owes much to Williams’ efforts.
The story goes that, several years ago, Williams sought family history and was sent to see Huxford. Williams found the judge eating in a Homerville restaurant. The two men spoke at great length during that first meeting and developed a friendship. Williams later helped Huxford create the society.
Williams was a man who looked for positive outcomes.
“I like win-win situations rather than win-lose situations,” he said in 2001. “Most situations you run into, somebody wins, and somebody loses.”
Funeral services are scheduled for 11 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 2, First Baptist Church, Valdosta.
Local News
Related Photos
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Boe Williams in his office at Country Cobbler in February of 2007. Williams died over the weekend. File photo
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Businessman, historian Boe Williams dies
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