Marcia McWilliams Bystrom peacefully passed on Friday night, June 22, 2018 in Florence, Alabama.

Born in Sheridan WY on November 11, 1925 to Henry H. McWilliams and Julia Buck McWilliams, Marcia was the younger of two children. When not attending a one-room mixed-grade country school and then high school in Sheridan, Marcia did her chores on the family ranch. After graduating from high school, she attended New Mexico State University (Albuquerque), then transferred to the University of Colorado (Boulder) where she earned a degree in Liberal Arts, Cum laude.

She married Charles Bystrom and became stepmother to three girls. The family moved to Chicago and then to Florence, Alabama. B

eginning in 1962, she became a research librarian with the Tennessee Valley Authority, working for almost 30 years serving outstanding TVA scientists and engineers. She was among the first of her colleagues to use evolving information storage and retrieval systems. She learned a sufficient amount of French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, and Russian to enable her to read table headings and data columns to provide information from foreign publications, upon request.

After Marcia was widowed, she devoted more of her time on community service. S he was active in organizations addressing poverty, minority and women's rights, Alabama constitutional reform, and Using the protocol of the Library of Congress, she organized and indexed books and other printed matter in the libraries of the Tennessee Valley Art Association, presented programs on art and/or music at the Institute for Learning at the University of North Alabama, and was an active member of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation.

Marcia joined the Quad Cities Bicycle Club in 1975 and became serious cyclist until her mid-80s, riding a mountain bike, one of her road bikes, or a tandem. She rode in the annual WC Handy Festival Centuries (100 mile rides), ln the annual ‘Ride Across Iowa' (along with 12,000 cyclists), made week-long camping trips, and bicycle tours in Costa Rica and Prince Edward Island and along the Loire river in France.

After retirement from TVA, Marcia and friends made several Elder Hostel (Rhodes Scholar) trips here and abroad.

She is preceded in death by her parents, her husband Charles, brother John Edward McWilliams, and two stepdaughters (Sandra Furno and Roberta Neil).

She is survived by one stepdaughter (Lois Gill), a nephew (Michael Lloyd McWilliams), a niece (Diana McWilliams Bochenski), an adopted granddaughter (Laura Neil), and a sister-in-law (Mary Ellen McWilliams).

Marcia was a kind, moral, sincere, quiet, self-effacing, private person. She wanted no burial, no burial service.

Over the years, a favorite trip for her was to the Unitarian Universalist mountain retreat in N. Carolina: There to meditate, and all who knew her are invited to meditate as well, and without public ceremony, to consider with their individual thoughts and emotions, the value of their lives.

The Sheridan Press - July 20, 2018.