JACKSON, JERRY (Jerry Gee Jackson)
United States
Born August 14, 1928 in San Diego, California
Died May 13, 2014 in Point Loma, California
Married (1) Winthrop Duncan Waterman in 1951 (he died in 1965)
Married (2) Thomas Williamson in 1967
[Active 1940s-50s]
[From her USTA obit]
Jerry Williamson, 85, tennis standout, author, volunteer
By Care Dipping10:30 p.m.May 28, 2014
Jerry Williamson was the daughter of dazzling parents who were quite prominent in society and art circles during San Diego’s salad days. In her own right, she was a nationally ranked tennis player, author, editor, volunteer and the cherished center of her family who accomplished the enviable: a balanced life.
“Jerry did many things very well and always with a light touch,” said childhood friend Anne Evans. “She wrote books with imagination and humor and was a skillful volunteer. She was a great athlete, but she did not give away her femininity.
“She was the distinguished daughter of distinguished parents.”
Mrs. Williamson died of complications of Parkinson’s disease on May 13 at her Point Loma home. The native San Diegan was 85.
She was born Jerry Gee Jackson on Aug. 14, 1928, the only child of Everett Gee Jackson and Eileen Dwyer Jackson. Her father was a noted modernist painter and art department chairman at what was then San Diego State College. Her mother was virtually a household name for her society column, Straws in the Wind, that ran for decades in the San Diego Union.
She attended Francis W. Parker School, where her athleticism evidenced itself early.
“I was a fan of hers ever since Francis Parker Field Day when Jerry was able to out high jump the boys,” said longtime friend George Gildred. “We would watch the sixth-graders be put through the paces and I specifically remember Jerry doing that fabulous high jump into a big pile of sawdust.
“She just had a joie de vivre that enthused all her many pals.”
In the 1940s and 1950s, she often played tennis with San Diego’s Grand Slam wunderkind Maureen “Little Mo” Connolly. She competed in tournaments throughout the nation, winning numerous singles and doubles titles, including the Junior Girls’ Championship in Philadelphia and the Women’s National Championship at Forest Hills. In 1946, the year she graduated from San Diego High School, she was the fifth-ranked junior girls singles player in the country.
Mrs. Williamson earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Stanford in 1950. Because the university had no women’s tennis team when she was a student, she practiced with the men’s varsity team and participated in the annual “Women’s Sports Day,” competing against female students from UC Berkeley.
In 1951, she married San Diego stockbroker Winthrop Duncan Waterman. The couple had two sons before Waterman died in an automobile accident in 1965.
Remarrying in 1967, Mrs. Williamson raised her children, taught at her grammar school alma mater, and kept up her tennis game. In 1980, she bested Luciano Pavarotti in a friendly match that prompted the opera star to drop his racket and bellow at her, “Brava! Brava!”
An active volunteer, she served from the 1960s through the early 2000s on several boards, including those for the Latin American Arts Committee at the San Diego Museum of Art, the National Society of The Colonial Dames of America, Junior League of San Diego and the mother-daughter philanthropic group MADCAPS.
Source:
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/...?#article-copy
[Thanks to LK for this biography]
