Claudia Franc Williams, daughter of Red Sox legend Ted Williams, dies at 52
“Although your dad certainly encouraged and insisted you to contribute to society, you went above and beyond."
Claudia Franc Williams, the daughter and youngest child of Hall of Famer Ted Williams, has died. She was 52.
Ms. Williams died in December 2023. The Red Sox announced her death Wednesday, the team honoring her family’s wish to mourn privately before sharing the news with the public, according to Red Sox president and CEO Sam Kennedy.
“Claudia was a cherished member of the Red Sox family, known for her deep dedication to preserving her father’s legacy, and all of us feel a responsibility to carry on her mission in her absence,” Kennedy said in a statement. “Claudia’s commitment and passion were inspiring and she will be profoundly missed by all of us at the Red Sox and all who knew her.”
The team’s announcement included an elegy from Williams’s husband of 17 years, Eric Abel, in which he referred to his wife, a nurse practitioner, as “a beacon of love, always the best at showing me love.”
“Although your dad certainly encouraged and insisted you to contribute to society, you went above and beyond. Your decision to work in healthcare was a calling,” Abel wrote, in part. “You were an amazing advocate for your patients. With a heart so open and giving, you showed so many the true meaning of compassion.”
Ms. Williams was raised in Vermont by her mother, Dolores Wettach, who split with Ted two years after Claudia Williams was born. She attended Springfield College and spent significant time in Europe in her early years. According to an ESPN profile, Ms. Williams nearly qualified for the 2000 Olympics as a triathlete, as well as being a skilled tennis player. She completed both the 2003 and 2004 Boston Marathons.
“I am very much my father’s daughter,” she told the Associated Press in 2021. “I do not do squat if I don’t feel passionate about it.”
Ms. Williams received her nursing degree from Duke, also studied at Central Florida, and helped maintain her parents’ former home in Westminster, Vt., as a rental property filled with memorabilia from their lives. (Ms. Wettach was herself a nurse, as well as a former Vogue model and Miss Vermont. She died in 2017.) Ms. Williams and Abel, the Williams’s family attorney for more than 30 years, lived in Hernando, Fla.
Claudia’s brother, John Henry Williams, died at 35 of leukemia in March 2004, two years after their legendary father. Ted Williams’s death, and the subsequent decision to have his body frozen and stored in a cryonics facility in Arizona, put Claudia and John Henry in an international spotlight.
The decision was based on a note dated Nov. 2, 2000, and signed by Claudia, John Henry, and Ted, in which they consented to be put in “Bio-Stasis after we die.” The note’s provenance was heavily questioned, with Williams’s first-born child, Bobby-Jo Farrell, citing his will and saying her father had wished to be cremated, with his remains scattered off the Florida coast.
Farrell, a child of Williams’s first marriage who died in 2010, petitioned to have her father’s body returned to Florida, but ultimately dropped the suit. Ms. Williams maintained the agreement was legitimate, signed just before a heart procedure her father wasn’t sure he would live through. After initial skepticism when John Henry brought up cryonics, Ms. Williams said Ted was won over by his love for his children.
“I can tell you that my family chose cryonics out of love. No one would spend over $100,000 and subject themselves to public outrage and ridicule for someone they don’t dearly love,” Ms. Williams wrote in her 2014 memoir, ‘Ted Williams, My Father.’ “There was no ill intent or devious plan. . . . [Cryonics] was like a religion. Something we could have faith in.”
She said she and John Henry, Ted’s children with his third wife, didn’t entirely believe their father would be woken from suspension one day and reunited with them, but that cryonics was a way to keep him close in their grief.
“It is no different from holding the belief that you might be reunited with your loved ones in Heaven,” she wrote. “Our father knew we needed something to hold onto for hope and comfort and when we missed him the most, and if cryonics was the answer, then the solution was simple.”
In his elegy, Abel wrote of the comfort the thought of that togetherness brought him.
“As I navigate the world without you, I trust you are in the sweet embraces of your dad, mom, and brother,” wrote Abel. “Your love and integrity are forever etched in me. I mourn the loss of your wit, your intelligence, your bold love, your gentle touch, and the kindness in your soul. Until we meet again, I hold you close in my heart and memories. In my heart, and the hearts of every person you ever met, you live on.
“I am confident that the Red Sox family and Red Sox Nation hold you in the highest regard for carrying the Williams family banner so well. Your legacy remains untarnished, and forever cherished.”
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