East Lyme - If Esther B. Williams can't recall a town tidbit - a rare occasion, but hey, it happens - she's got the memories at her fingertips.

Ask about her father and she'll pull out a book on her desk with pictures of locations along Niantic's Main Street where her father had his barbershop.

Look out one of the Town Hall windows and you'll see the house Williams, East Lyme's longtime town clerk, grew up in. Her father, an immigrant from Sicily, liked to say he lived "in the white house on Pennsylvania Avenue."

Williams' personal stories are intertwined with that of the town's, and it's no wonder. She's been working in the East Lyme town clerk's office for 45 years; she succeeded her mother, who died at age 56 from a brain tumor, as an assistant town clerk, then became town clerk in 1982.

The matriarch of town clerkship in Connecticut is retiring on April 5 after a lifetime of recording birth and death certificates, handling elections, filing deeds and endearing herself to everyone who ever walked into Town Hall.

She is one of the longest-serving town clerks in the region in recent memory. Irene Carnell retired from Old Lyme after 33 years, while Barbara Tarbox and Ruth Perry served Groton and Lyme, respectively, for 24 years.

It's like Williams was destined to be part of the region's history. The 73-year-old was born in New London a week before the Hurricane of 1938, a historic event branded in the region's collective story. A graduate of Niantic Center School, Williams Memorial Institute (now Williams School) and Mitchell College, Williams gave her new job at a New London law firm three days before she decided it wasn't for her.

One of the lawyers at the firm also happened to be the Waterford town clerk, and Williams wound up working there for the next four years.

Williams, a mother of a son and grandmother of two, knows everyone and always has a good-natured jab at the ready. Those she doesn't recognize she still greets like a longtime friend.

"People come in just to say hello," said Lesley A. Blais, who has worked with Williams for 20 years as one of the office's two assistant town clerks.

You can't escape her, try to sneak by her. Her desk is positioned squarely in front of the door to the town clerk's office, the first office you have to walk by when you enter Town Hall. When she became town clerk in 1982, she eschewed the corner office in favor of that high-traffic area.

"No way - I'm not going in there," she remembered thinking of the corner office. "I want to know everything that's going on."

Though she decided it's time to retire and travel with her husband, Bob Williamson, Williams still tears up at the thought of leaving the place she's come to regard as her second home, her second family.

"I'm a people person. That's why leaving this job is going to be very difficult," Williams said.

The tidy office includes a collection of mementos from her years in town as well as accolades that range from Rotary awards to recognition as the state Town Clerk of the Year in 2000.

Pieces of the town - literally - sit on Williams' desk: a chunk of the old Niantic River Bridge, with the years "1939-1991" painted on it, a piece of an old water tower at Camp Niantic.

Postcards sent by globe-trotting friends, including retired East Lyme High School teacher Thomas Woudenberg, cover a wall in the office and will eventually go home with Williams to help jog her memory when she sits down to finally tell her story in a book.

'Time to say goodbye'

Williams made her retirement announcement at First Selectman Paul Formica's Dec. 5 inauguration in which she made a reference to the song "Time to Say Goodbye." There was a collective gasp from the audience, her husband told her later.

"They probably thought I was going to die," Williams said.

Formica called Williams "a town treasure," for "not only her ability to perform the position in a superlative fashion but her effervescent personality that she brought to every transaction made.

"Every person who came into her office felt like they were coming home," Formica said.

Her nurturing nature extended beyond East Lyme. Active in the Connecticut Town Clerks Association, Williams has over the years offered herself up as a mentor to younger clerks, including Lisa Terry, the Montville town clerk.

"She has it all passion, humor and a true love of the job," Terry wrote in an email. "Her knowledge and her experience will be sorely missed."

When Nathan Caron was appointed the New London city clerk last month, Williams emailed him, offering to help get him acquainted to the job. A middle school teacher, Caron gladly took her up on the offer and this week (JAN. 11) visited East Lyme Town Hall to see how she managed her office.

Joseph Camposeo, the Manchester town clerk and past president of the Connecticut Town Clerks Association, said Williams was one of the people he turned to for advice when he first became town clerk 16 years ago.

"She's very much respected by many of our colleagues throughout the state, not to mention she's a fun-loving person," Camposeo said. "I think when you blend that talent, that capacity in what we do - because it's a people business - it makes the output, it makes the respect, it makes the accomplishments all the better."

J.CHO@THEDAY.COM