Family trying to bring son home FHS graduate, U.S. Navy veteran killed in Phillipines BY CLARE MARIE CELANO Staff Writer Jerome Williams Marsha Holts and her husband, Bruce, of Neptune expected to spend the week before Christmas preparing for the holiday. Instead, they had to deal with the untimely death of her son. Jerome Jemall “J.J.” Williams, 37, a graduate of Freehold High School, was killed in a motorcycle accident in the Philippines on Dec. 20. Holts said J.J. was driving the motorcycle when he collided with another vehicle and was killed. Williams is survived by his wife, Jenny, and six children. Besides the grief of having lost a precious son, Marsha is now trying to figure out a way to get her son’s body back to the United States and to his resting place in the Brigadier General William C. Doyle Memorial Cemetery, Arnytown, Burlington County, where his father, Claude Williams, is buried. According to Marsha, the cost to bring J.J. home from the Philippines will come to about $6,000. Add the cost of the funeral service in the Philippines ($2,600) and $5,000 for a funeral service and burial here, and it will take more than $13,000 to get J.J. to the cemetery in Arneytown. The young man had no life insurance. The family hosted a candlelight vigil on Dec. 22 at the home of J.J.’s grandmother, Geraldine Williams. The house on Avenue A is the same house where J.J.’s father, Claude, grew up, and where Marsha and Claude’s children, Jerome, Currie Kellam and Caroline Scott spent many happy days. In Currie’s words, “We are all back at our old stomping grounds, the place we all loved to visit.” The Williams family has lived in the area of Avenue A for generations and although many members of the family do not live there anymore, Grandma Gerry’s home remains the hub of family gatherings for both the good times and the bad times. A steady rainfall did not dampen the heartfelt emotions that were being expressed by family members as they gathered outside Grandma Gerry’s home. Everyone had their own a special memory about J.J. Currie said she arranged the candlelight vigil to try to ease her mother’s burden and to ask friends and family to help to get J.J. home to his family and to his final resting place. Eventually, Caroline and Currie gave in to the tears they had been trying to hold back as they recalled their brother. Caroline remembered J.J. for his silliness, his wonderful jokes and his fun-loving personality. Currie spoke of his role as protector, generous to a fault. She said that as children they were inseparable. Williams was well known in the borough for his athletic ability and his presence on the Freehold High School football team. According to his mother, he attended William Paterson University, Wayne, where he also played football. After a year of college he decided to enlist in the U.S. Navy, where he eventually served as a Navy Dolphin and a sonar technician for a nuclear submarine. After eight years of service Williams left the Navy on a medical discharge and went back to school. He moved to the Philippines, the homeland of his wife, Jenny. He attended school in the Philippines and earned a degree in economics. His mother said he was planning to pursue a master’s degree in economics. “We are a very close knit family and a close knit church community,” Marsha said. “We are hoping that once people are aware, they may help us to get J.J. back home. I had a dream last night, not a dream really, but I was thinking of him. I guess I was half asleep you know? I kept thinking, what must he have thought when he knew what was happening to him, when he knew this was it?” Donations may be made at the home of Geraldine Williams, 2 Avenue A, Freehold. For more information, Marsha Holts may be reached at (732) 502-5088.