Norma Williams, 69, landscape architect

Norma Eleanor Williams died at her home in Ridgefield on March 19th after a brief illness. She was 69 years old.

She was born in Manchester, Connecticut on December 13, 1944 to Steven D. Williams and Martha Stoughton Williams. She grew up in South Windsor where members of her family had settled in the seventeenth century. She graduated from the MacDuffie School in Springfield, Massachusetts and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from St. Johns College in Annapolis, Maryland in 1967. She worked for IBM in New York until 1983 and held technical and management positions in information systems and internal audit.

She left IBM and enrolled in the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia in 1983. She received a Masters degree in Landscape Architecture in 1986. She moved back to Connecticut that same year. She held professional licenses in Connecticut and New York and worked for several firms before she established her own practice and specialized in historic preservation. She worked on large-scale restoration and preservation projects at the Weir Farm Historic Site in Wilton, Connecticut, at Greenwood Gardens in Short Hills, New Jersey, and at Henry Wadsworth Longfellows house in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects and served as president of the societys Connecticut chapter for two terms. She was a founding member of the Connecticut Olmsted Heritage Alliance and served as its first president. She served as the First District Officer for Connecticut in the Historic American Landscape Survey. She was named to the Governors Council on Historic Preservation in 2011.

She is survived by her husband, Tom Madden, by his daughter, Margaret McClennan of Framingham, Massachusetts, and by his two grandsons. She is also survived by two brothers, Steven Williams of Carmel, New York and Christopher Williams of Middletown, Connecticut and by a sister, Nancy Brown of Guilford, Connecticut.

In keeping with her wishes there will be no memorial service. Contributions can be made in her memory to a food bank or to any organization that helps people who are hungry.

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Norma Williams, 69, landscape architect