Grace Williams, Blue Cross service director

Grace Mathis Williams, 88, of Westville, who retired in 1990 as customer service director for what is now Independence Blue Cross in Philadelphia, died Monday, Nov. 18, of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at home.

In 2008, the Borough of Westville and the Lions Club there gave her a Special Recognition Award, "mainly for her volunteer work for the Westville Library," daughter Penny Cipolone said.

"She was a driving force behind the library, its move from one building to another, improving its facility."

Born in Westville, Mrs. Williams graduated in 1942 from Woodbury High School.

After working briefly for a hospital in Woodbury, her daughter said, she began her four-decade career with what was then the Philadelphia office of Blue Cross.

"She started out in what we called customer service, on the first floor of the Widener Building, next to John Wanamaker's" at Juniper and Market Streets.

Mrs. Williams was "the first female director with the major medical department," her daughter said, then the first female director of the customer service department.

"The thing that impresses me the most" about her breaking the glass ceiling with a high school diploma, her daughter said, was that when she retired, "they hired somebody with a master's degree."

At her passing, Cipolone said, Mrs. Williams was president of the board of trustees of the Westville Public Library and a member of the board of trustees of the Gloucester County Historical Society.

She had served on both boards for more than 20 years.

For two or three terms, Mrs. Williams was president of the Westville chapter of the New Jersey State Federation of Women's Clubs.

As historical chairwoman of the state federation after she retired from Blue Cross, she edited the federation's 100th anniversary yearbook, "A Century of Challenge."

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, she was an adviser to the youth group at the former St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church in Westville.

Besides her daughter, Mrs. Williams is survived by a grandson, Stephen. Her husband of 52 years, Joseph, died in 1996.

A visitation was set for 5 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 24, at the McBride-Foley Funeral Home, 228 W. Broad St., Paulsboro, before a 7 p.m. funeral there. Interment is to be private.

Donations may be made to www.westvillelibrary.com.

Condolences may be offered to the family at www.mcbridefoleyfh.com.