Jane Willingham loved the world of words, literature and ideas, building theater sets with renowned Georgia author Flannery O’Connor when the two were students at Georgia State College for Women and editing the school’s literary magazine.
She had a varied and successful career as a disc jockey, high school teacher, diction instructor, wife and mother of three. And she was a wonderful cook.
After graduating from college in 1944, Willingham took her melodic voice to WSB radio in Atlanta and was hired on the spot as one of the first female announcers in Atlanta radio. She wrote and produced news and commercials and was a DJ, too.
“You couldn’t forget that voice,” said longtime friend Carolyn Haldeman. “It was so beautiful.” She read and told stories to her three children, adopting the voices of various characters and creatures, leading her children to beg for “just one more.”
Jane Sparks Willingham, daughter of the late Andrew H. Sparks and Marie Mason Sparks, died Feb. 26 at Southwest Christian Care from cancer. She was 92.
Born in Millen, Ga., on Sept. 9, 1923, she would take the train as a young girl to visit her grandparents in the big city of Atlanta. Her father, a Ford automobile dealer, moved the family to Swainsboro after ill health forced him to sell his business. She graduated from Swainsboro High.
Always outgoing and interested in people’s stories, Willingham had plenty of suitors after moving to Atlanta.
One day, a florist delivered yellow roses from a young man named Frank. “But Mother had to call the florist to see which Frank it was. She was friends with three Franks at the time,” said Carol Willingham, her daughter.
As it turns out, Frank was Frank Willingham, and the two were married in 1947.
Her station manager once asked her to record speech and enunciation lessons for President Harry Truman. She later met the president, who reportedly said he took her advice — except when it came to softening his “r’s”.
She had three children and resigned her position at WSB-Radio to stay home with them. For a while.
Soon, she was called to fill a teaching vacancy at Lakeshore High School, something she thought might be temporary. She stayed there 25 years and during her tenure was voted Lakeshore High School teacher of the year and Fulton County high school teacher of the year. She also chaired the English department.
During her years at Lakeshore, she earned a master’s degree in English at Georgia State University, her daughter said.
“I can’t imagine doing that with three teenagers at home,” Carol Willingham said. “But somehow she did it.”
Willingham also was awarded the George Washington Honor Medal by the National Freedom Foundation at Valley Forge, Pa. This was due in part to a project she directed her Lakeshore students to produce called Bronze Reminiscence, which involved students interviewing the oldest person they could find, preferably a grandparent or great-grandparent.
She was a charter member of the Southern Order of Storytellers. For many years, she and her husband, Frank, who was organist at the Baptist Tabernacle, were members of that congregation. She taught Sunday school and later Bible study at her final church, Southwest Christian Church.
She always found time for the children, no matter how many projects she had going on, Carol Willingham recalled. “She’d drop everything for us if we needed her,” Carol said.
Everyone who knew her loved to have meals at the Willingham home because she was such an outstanding cook. Her specialty was squash casserole, but she also made a mean pound cake and delectable peach pie.
“When she married my father, he said he didn’t like squash, and she told him that he was going to just have to learn to like it,” said Carol Willingham.
“She said her mother told her, ‘the more stuff you put in there, the better it is,’ ” said one of her two sons, David Willingham.
Willingham’s friend Haldeman said she has big shoes to fill as she hosts a book club next month that Willingham had invited her to join long ago. It’s an elite group, Haldeman said, but because the women have lunch after the book discussion, attendance cannot exceed the number of dining room chairs in members’ homes. April would have been Willingham’s month to be hostess.
“I don’t have her voice, and I don’t have the Haviland china, but I’ll just do the best I can,” said Haldeman.
A memorial service for Willingham was held at Southwest Christian Church on March 12.
In addition to Carol and David Willingham, survivors include son Stephen Willingham and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Two brothers died before her, including Thomas Sparks and Andrew Sparks, an editor in the 1970s of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Atlanta Weekly magazine.
About the Author
