Julie Michelle Williams

Julie Michelle Williams was born in Jackson on February 6, 1996, to Johnny Williams and Jeannie Foster Williams. She was greeted in heaven by her grandmother and grandfather, Tom and Kitty Williams, and her special friend, Jacy Riley. She is survived by her grandfather and grandmother, Larry and Paulette Foster; brothers, Jeremy Williams (Jordan, Jiles, Jayleigh), Jacob Williams (Ariel, Avery); her aunts and uncles, Jennifer Foster Bass (Gary, Madison, Austin, Jerry-Lee, Ethan, and Elizabeth), Jill Foster Smith (Lief), Ricky Williams (Gwen, Colby, Amanda, Mason, Miller, Cassie), and Danny Williams (Kathy, Ryan, Raeanna, Rebekah). She also leaves behind her beloved fiancé, Joey Rushing.
Julie was a lifelong member of Shalom Baptist Church, where she became a Christian at a young age. She attended New Hebron Attendance Center K-8th grade and graduated from Lawrence County High School in 2014. She received her Associate of Arts from Southwest Mississippi Community College in 2016 and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education from the University of Southern Mississippi in May.
She was known by more people than we can even begin to imagine. Julie had the personality that lured strangers into friends, but she was loved most by those who were blessed to truly know her loving kindred spirit. This was evident in the things she enjoyed the most from playing Rumi and Spades with her Mamaw Kitty, hunting anything from deer to dove, to keeping books for LC Baseball games. There was nothing Julie enjoyed more than spending the last week of every July since 1996 at the Neshoba County Fair in Mamaw Kitty’s family-owned cabin.
Julie loved all children as her own. It was this love for children that led her to become the owner of Heaven’s Little Saints Daycare and to accept a position teaching Kindergarten at Tylertown Primary. She spent much of her free time with her nephew and nieces, Jiles, Jayleigh, and Avery, whom she absolutely adored.
Julie was always the life of the party. She was sure to make everyone laugh and have a good time. Julie spread this jolly energy while cheering at LCHS and serving as captain of the cheer team at Southwest Mississippi Community College. She loved music and loved to sing at the top of her lungs, even when she did not know all the words.
She was most excited about her upcoming nuptials in November to the love of her life, Joey Rushing. They met at a college party in McComb in the fall of 2016. He proposed to her, in true Julie form, during a dove hunt. They shared a home in Tylertown along with their dog, Addie Lee, and cat, Nala. Julie said it best with the following quote, “We don’t have the fairy-tale love story that most little girls dream of when growing up. Our relationship has been through ups and downs, left turns and right turns, but we seem to always find our way back to each other. This has been my favorite roller coaster yet.”
Nothing could be complete for Julie Michelle Williams without ending with a quote from Grey’s Anatomy by Meredith Grey, “They say death is hardest on the living. It’s tough to actually say goodbye. Sometimes it’s impossible. You never really stop feeling the loss. It’s what makes things so bittersweet. We leave little bits of ourselves behind, little reminders. A lifetime of memories, photos, trinkets. Things to remember us by even when we’re gone.”