Barbara Rose Williams was born January 22, 1949, in Baltimore, Maryland, the seventh of eight children born to Robert and Ollie Williams. She was educated in Baltimore City Public Schools and graduated from Western, the oldest all-girls high school in the United States. She was truly a Western “dove,” stylish and congenial. She excelled in French and dance classes. Classmate Betty Green said, “I remember Rose as fashionable, soft-spoken, and artistic. She always carried herself in a ladylike manner.”

After high school, Barbara Rose began a career in the federal government with the Social Security Administration, where her friends “Steph” and “Bird” worked. She later married her high school sweetheart, Isaiah P. Cotton, and from their union came Candace and Mister. She was a devoted mother who prayed for and nurtured her children.

She loved life and new experiences, living and working in Boston and Harrisburg before she moved to Atlanta in the mid-1970s. She worked for the Department of the Army at Fort Gillem under Commander Colonel Hanks. Colonel Hanks held a bible study where Barbara Rose’s faith journey began to grow. She was baptized in the Holy Spirit at a small Holiness church in Thomasville, Georgia.

When she transferred to Fort Meade, Maryland, she was very active in service to the Lord, attending Calvary Chapel there. She completed missionary and deacon training under the leadership of Mother Earline Darden. Barbara Rose served communion, held bible study, and offered prayer at juvenile and adult correctional facilities in Laurel, Jessup, and Crownsville, Maryland. She’d call out, “Come on! Let’s go!” to Von when it was time to go to Crownsville. Barbara Rose dedicated her loving heart and helping hands to her family. She was a caregiver for her husband of 17 years. After Isaiah’s passing, Rose moved in with her sister Von in Columbia, Maryland. There she raised her son and helped raise her oldest granddaughters, Whitney and Jordan. After she retired from the federal government, she expanded her love for fashion and became a personal shopper at Nordstrom. She also became a para-educator with Howard County Public Schools, where she had the summers off. Mister and Carlita would bring Naima and Nylah so she could visit with her youngest grandgirls.

After Barbara Rose retired from the school system in 2017, she moved to Atlanta and devoted her time to her great-grandchildren. During breaks, she would visit with her sisters Rita in Hampton, Von in Charlotte, and Bernadette in Maryland. Rose was a real Atlanta housewife, having made a home there. She truly had the gift of hospitality and enjoyed cooking and entertaining. She had friends, the Freedom Movement Church family, walking partners, and Glory Call sisters. She attended the Mayor’s Ball. She loved music and dancing—and she could dance. She liked going to Whole Foods and the farmers market with her granddaughters, Whitney and Jordan. She often sent text messages to those she loved each morning and every night. She stayed close to her family and would talk for hours each day to siblings Von, Rita, Robert, Tommy, and Freddie.

Barbara Rose leaves many to cherish her memory: her children, Dr. Candace M. Cotton, Mister Isaiah Cotton, and daughter-in-love Carlita Freeman. Four granddaughters Whitney Danielle, Jordan Lacy, Naima Rose, and Nylah Savannah; great-grand twins Ethan Ray and Eden Reign; sisters LaVonne Williams and Rita White; brothers Robert “Koochie” Williams, Thomas “Tommy” Williams and Freddie Williams; brother-in-law Roland White Sr; sisters-in-law Debbie Williams, Theressa Williams. Twelve nieces and nephews, Nineteen great nieces and great nephews, one great aunt Marcellas Young; her best girlfriend Stephanie Stevenson, Mr. Bill Webb; bonus daughter Niesha Webb, and a host of cousins and friends in Maryland, New York, New Jersey, and Georgia.

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