Barbara Williams was born in Calumet, Michigan on May 2, 1909. She attended the local schools, graduating in 1926, and followed on to attend Lawrence University in Wisconsin, where she graduated with a degree in English in 1930. Returning to her hometown she worked as an assistant librarian for the Calumet and Hecla Consolidated Mining Company, a company which had also employed her father, until 1935 when she returned to college at the University of Wisconsin Library School. After graduation in 1936 she served in various library positions in Black River Falls, Minnesota; Minot, North Dakota; River Forest, Illinois; and Racine, Wisconsin until 1948 when she returned to Calumet as the librarian of the school and public library. In 1966 she moved to Evanston, Illinois where she was a reference librarian until her death in 1979. Barbara Williams was a lifetime professional librarian, whose primary outside interest was the researching of information relating to life and events of Michigan's Copper Country. Ms. Williams was active in the American Association of University Women, her university alumni association, the Episcopalian Church, and many organizations dedicated to the Calumet Theatre, her hometown and the entire Keweenaw area.