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Rollin LeRoy
Williams was born March 5, 1902, in
Vistula, Indiana, his parents, were Agnes and Harvey
Williams. He had a brother and 2 sisters. Harvey was an
Elkhart, In. policeman, who died
in 1916.
Rollie and his brother, Roger went to work to support the
family. Roger then went into the army and support was left to
Rollie, who worked 2 jobs and continued his education. He managed
to save $1000 after high school and went to
University of Illinois to
understudy Red Grange. Rollie was an excellent football player and
Knute Rockne once said, "the best football player he saw coming
out of high school". However after two threatening letters from
the KKK, the protestant/catholic situation back in the day, it was
on to Illinois, not Notre Dame for
Rollie. A broken collar bone and too expensive called for a change
and Rollie spent 2 years in Greencastle
at DePauw University, class of 1927. Pretty good for $1000.
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He married Beatrice Meyers,
and became assistant manager of the
Montgomery Ward store in Rockford,
Ill. In 1933 he borrowed $300 from his mother and
step-father to buy a Texaco station with adjoining restaurant to
capitalize on traffic coming from the east to attend the
Chicago Worlds Fair. The
restaurant phased into tires, batteries, auto parts and then into
paints for the home owner, auto, and mobile home industries. The
business became known as Rollie Williams Paint Spot. It is still
in business, with 5 locations, including
Indianapolis and owned by Tom Curtis and his family,
Rollie's nephew. Bea and Rollie had 3 children, an infant who died
shortly after birth, Sharon Williams Ubben (Mrs. Timothy) of
Glencoe, Il. and
Naples, Fl. and Jerry Williams
(Jane) of Tampa, Fl.
In 1947, Bea & Rollie bought a home on the St. Joseph river
in Elkhart. About the same time,
Mac White returned from military service and bought a 17'
Chris-Craft and Winner water skis. Mac attempted to teach the
neighborhood to ski. In order to speed things up, his rules called
for 2 skiers to learn at a time and to be sitting on a narrow dock
with a diving board. According to son Jerry, it was sheer terror
but everyone learned. Before long, Rollie bought a used 17'
Chris-Craft with 95 HP engine and upgraded to CC Riviera with 131
HP a few years later. Water skiing came to the
St. Joe in earnest. About that
time, Rollie was constructing a building for his business to
accommodate expansion. There was lumber around so his son Jerry,
decided to build a ski jump. He used 13 gallon barrels for floats
- and the jump fell over. So Jerry anchored the jump with 2X4's
driven into the sand in a shallow part of the St. Joe River. It
was way too steep, like skiing into the side of a barn, so Rollie
wrote the AWSA, got the plans and had one professionally built,
before Jerry could get into real trouble. And that was the start
of real competitive skiing on the St. Joe.
The family skied in the Indiana State
Tournament on Lake Wawasee in front of
South Shore Inn in very rough water in 1950. Rollie, Sharon
& Jerry, skied in Indiana State tournaments through out the 50’s.
Rollie skied in MidWest
Regional tournaments in '52 thru '56, and Nationals in "52 -
Minocqua, Wi, '54 - Lake Winnipesaukee,
NH and ’56 LaPorte, IN '56.
He continued to ski in the Midwest
Regionals and a few tournaments in Florida. He also skied
at Cypress Gardens in 1960. He
stayed involved, into the early 60's. When Rollie learned there
was a Veterans Division for those over 55, he jumped right in so
to speak. The results of a lot of those tournaments have been
provided by his family and are posted on the wall behind me.
Sadly, Rollie was diagnosed with lymphoma, probably due to
toxicity of paints, and passed away in 1965. His widow, Bea,
passed away in 1998. Bea & Rollie are survived by 5 grandchildren
and 15 great grandchildren in addition to their daughter and son.
Here to accept Rollie’s
induction into the Indiana Water Ski Hall of Fame is his son Jerry
Williams and Jerry’s wife Jane.
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