FAMILY:
difficult childhood with parents engaging in violent arguments, an alcoholic and homophobic father, a mother who struggled with mental health and ended her life in a mental home, a sister who had schizophrenia and was treated with an unsuccessful frontal lobotomy

LOVE:
met and fell in love with Frank Merlo (1947) while living in New Orleans, Merlo dies (1961) and Williams becomes depressed for 10 years