Myrtle Williams, 86; Florist, Youth Mentor in Compton

Myrtle Williams, who with her husband, Bill, operated the neighborhood flower shop in Compton, mentored local youth and lived out an enduring love match, has died. She was 86.

Williams died Sunday at Kindred Convalescent Home after many months of declining health, said Wini Jackson, a longtime friend of the couple.

Her husband died June 18 in a hospital room the couple shared briefly at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood. His death was attributed to worry about his wife and complications from a fall at the home the couple had owned since 1951 on West 137th Street in Compton.

“They loved each other so much,” Jackson said Monday, “that after he left, she just didn’t want to be here anymore.”

The couple had operated Bill Williams Florist, established in the garage behind their house in 1958.

They had supplied floral arrangements for the community’s weddings, funerals, proms and graduations for some 46 years.

Both born in 1917 (“I’m August; he’s December,” she would say), the couple married in 1942 at the home of the neighborhood preacher, dressed in their work clothes. They repeated the ceremony in 2002, complete with donated matching wedding rings, limousine, three-tiered wedding cake and the bridal bouquet she had skipped the first time around.

The surprise ceremony at Wayfarers Chapel and a community reception at Willowbrook Senior Center were arranged for the Williams’ 60th anniversary by Jackson and other friends.

Asked at the time how a couple could make love last for six decades, Myrtle Williams told The Times: “Don’t think about it. Just do it. You don’t have to think about being happy and being contented.”

The former Myrtle Holmes was born in Los Angeles and worked in the garment district. She met her future husband on Easter Sunday 1942 in a South Los Angeles nightclub, and he soon brought her the first corsage she ever had -- lavender cattleya orchids.

“It was the most gorgeous thing I had ever seen,” she told The Times. “And I thought he was a gentleman.”

In addition to working together in the floral shop, the childless couple employed, trained and mentored neighborhood children, even joining local school PTA groups to be closer to their extended family. The kids called them Mom and Dad, and she called her husband Daddy.

Williams’ body will lie in repose at the couple’s florist shop and home from noon to 5 p.m. Friday, with their beloved Billie Holiday recordings as background music.

Funeral services will be Saturday at 10 a.m. at Solomon’s Mortuary, 10625 S. Broadway, Los Angeles.

Other than an extended family of friends in the community, Williams had no survivors.