<p>Former Michigan first lady Nancy Williams Gram was remembered Monday as a gracious, intelligent woman who was ahead of her time in pushing for women's rights and child labor laws and often served as a statewide ambassador for her husband, Gov. G. Mennen "Soapy" Williams.</p><p>She died Monday in Savannah, Ga., a family friend said.</p><p>Tom Farrell confirmed the 91-year-old former first lady's death after being told about it by Gram's son, G. Mennen "Gery" Williams Jr. Gram had been ill for several months but rallied several times even after she began receiving hospice care.</p><p>Nancy Quirk was born in Ypsilanti on June 12, 1915. She met Williams while she was studying social work for her undergraduate degree and he was attending law school at the University of Michigan. They married in 1937.</p><p>"Nancy Williams was to Mennen Williams what Eleanor Roosevelt was to FDR. She was an extra pair of ears and an extra pair of eyes as she traveled around the state," said Frank Blackford, who served as the governor's legislative secretary and now lives in Fountain Hills, Ariz. "He would not have been as successful a politician as he turned out to be without Nancy."</p><p>G. Mennen Williams, who helped revitalize the Democratic Party in Michigan, won the 1948 gubernatorial nomination and went on to serve 12 years as governor, from 1949 to 1960. He then spent five years in the early 1960s as U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs and served two terms on the Michigan Supreme Court from 1971 to 1986.</p><p>Retired Michigan Supreme Court Justice Patricia Boyle said Monday that, while Williams was on the court, the Williamses always invited the justices and their spouses to their vacation residence on Mackinac Island to celebrate their wedding anniversary.</p><p>"We all sat on the front porch. We'd sing," she recalled. "The only thing that might have been wrong was we were a little too loud at night."</p><p>When the weekend ended, "as we would leave, we saw her (Nancy Williams) taking all the sheets off the beds and dragging them by carts" since cars are banned on the island, said Boyle, who served with Williams on the court from 1983 to 1987. "She's such an elegant lady, but so down to earth and so gracious."</p><p>Blackford remembered Nancy Williams talking about a formal dinner she and her husband attended at the White House that took a bad turn.</p><p>"She stepped on the train of Eleanor Roosevelt's dress and tore the train loose," he said. "She often talked about how embarrassed she was and how gracious Eleanor Roosevelt was about the mishap."</p><p>Blackford placed a lot of quarter bets with the first lady over football games when her beloved Michigan Wolverines would play the Michigan State Spartans. With Biggie Munn coaching the Spartans, Blackford usually won the bets.</p><p>Nancy Williams frequently used her position as first lady to help her husband, Blackford said. She had a TV program, "Nancy's Scrapbook," that she used as way to talk about events and why her husband took the positions he did.</p><p>"Nancy was very conversant with all things political," Blackford said. "Every one of us on the staff of Gov. Williams appreciated what Nancy was able to do for him."</p><p>G. Mennen Williams died in 1988. The following year, Nancy Williams married H. James Gram, a longtime family friend from Grosse Pointe Farms. He died in 2004.</p><p>Nancy Williams Gram was active on several boards in Michigan and in Washington, D.C. She donated much of the Asian porcelains, African art and antiques that she collected to museums.</p><p>She is survived by her son, of Savannah, and daughters Nancy Ketterer, of Waban, Mass., and Wendy Stock Williams, of Grosse Pointe Farms. She also had eight grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren and five stepdaughters: Margaret King, of New York; Tina Gram, of Somerville, Mass.; Betsy Calcutt, of Traverse City; Marion Laughlin, of Ann Arbor; and Carol Davis, of Owings Mill, Md.</p><p>Gram will be buried at the Protestant Cemetery on Mackinac Island, where G. Mennen Williams is buried. A date for graveside services had not been set.</p>
