Franes Wilson

Frances Parkman Wilson 1928-2010. Former Oak Ridger Frances Wilson, 82, a retired school teacher and widow of Loyd Wilson, died Sunday, Nov. 21 at a retirement center in Nashville after a long illness. Mrs. Wilson taught mathematics at Jefferson Junior High School from 1967 until 1985. She also worked at Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant and for the U.S. Department of Defense in the 1950s. She loved to cook and entertain, and she believed every evening should begin with cocktail hour. Mrs. Wilson was born in 1928 in Quincy, Fla., and grew up in Chattahoochee, Fla., the daughter of Stanley and Frances Parkman, She graduated from Chattahoochee High School in 1945. She earned an associate's degree from Mars Hill N.C. College in 1947 and a bachelor's degree in mathematics from The University of Tennessee at Knoxville in 1949. Mathematics was an unusual major for young women of her era, and she was the only coed in a differential equations class in early 1949 in Ayres Hall at UTK when she met Loyd Wilson of Chattanooga. They were married in September of the same year; he died in 2002. Mrs. Wilson is survived by two sons, Jeff Wilson and wife Teresa Wasson of Nashville and Eric Wilson of Chattanooga; three granddaughters, Lauren Wilson, Haley Wilson and Sarah Wilson, of Cookeville; a sister, Jane Bowles of Marietta, Ga.; and a host of nieces and nephews throughout the South. She was pre-deceased by her husband, by her parents and by two brothers, Stanley Parkman Jr. of Carrollton, Ga., and Tol Parkman of Chattahoochee, Fla. A memorial service will be at 1 p.m., Monday, Nov. 29, at United Church Chapel on the Hill of Oak Ridge. The family extends a special invitation to former colleagues and students. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the Children's Museum of Oak Ridge. Cremation services were provided by Harpeth Hills Memory Gardens Funeral Home & Cremation Center 9090 Highway 100 Nashville, TN 37221 615 646-9292.