On 18 September 2026 Elaine Williams, resident of Phoenix, MD passed away in her home as a result of complications from her long-standing autoimmune Addison’s disease. She was the first child of Arthur and Lyla Eckwall, who resided in Minnesota and had Scandinavian roots. After the war the family moved to California, settling eventually in Berkeley.

Elaine attended public schools and developed an early interest in music. She sang in a girl’s trio and took piano lessons. Attending the U. California, Berkeley before transferring to Whitworth College, where she majored in musical education. She met her husband Robert in Berkeley, and after his graduation they moved to Madison, where he obtained his graduate degree in astrophysics. There, they had their only child, Scott, before the family moved to Tucson, AZ where Bob was appointed to a professorship at U. Arizona.

As soon as Scott started school, Elaine became interested in educational psychology, obtaining a master’s degree. She was offered a position with a team following developmental disabilities in children and focused on the diagnosis of disabilities. One case involved a child that showed characteristics the team was not able to diagnose with any confidence. Elaine performed various tests and consulted researchers in pediatrics, finally concluding that the child had autism. It turned out to be one of the early diagnoses of autism in the state of Arizona.

The Williams family spent 8 years in Chile, during which time Elaine continued her work in autism, practicing diagnostic techniques and establishing programs to treat autism. She established programs in several of the large cities in Chile and brought in experts in autism from the U.S. to Chile to educate their professionals. Searching for a piano she could play, in Santiago she found one whose sound she loved---a German Bluthner. The Williams family became close friends of the U.S. Ambassador to Chile, Harry Barnes and his wife Betsy. She convinced Ambassador Barnes that he also should purchase a Bluthner for their family, which he did. Elaine also developed a friendship with well-known pianist Roberto Bravo, and they often played together when he visited the Willliams family in La Serena. On one special occasion Elaine and Roberto Bravo gave a recital in a church in the Elqui River Valley where locals came from villages all around, many on foot, to enjoy the music. The concert, given at a tense time during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, was televised in Chile. The Pinochet government refused to allow the concert to be televised on the ‘TV Nacional’ network because Robert Bravo was considered an extremista, so it appeared instead on the channel operated by the Catholic church in Chile.

The Willliams family re-located to Baltimore in 1993, with Elaine’s beloved Bluthner specially crated and flown up by air. Elaine accepted a position at the Johns Hopkins Kennedy-Krieger Center that specialized in the research, diagnosis, and treatment of childhood disabilities, especially including autism.

Upon arrival in Baltimore Elaine took charge of the house hunting. She found a nice property in the Baltimore County woods, in Phoenix, that offered possibilities for an extensive garden. She had been a serious gardener in Chile, with its mild climate favoring a diversity of plants that thrive there. Elaine found gardeners in Baltimore who introduced her to the plants that flourish in Maryland, and she became an active member of the Cliff Dwellers garden club. The chemistry of that group created some wonderful gardens and formed bonds between the members that continues to this day, making it one of Baltimore’s great ‘perennials’, i.e., social plants!

Elaine took piano lessons in Baltimore, and advanced notably in her abilities to play repertoire pieces as a student of a graduate of the well-regarded Peabody Institute/Conservatory. She joined in the formation of a small, committed group of piano players called the Matinee group that performed for each other once a month in the Steinway Gallery.

As much as music and piano playing and gardening consumed Elaine’s life, it was autism that drove her. That condition and advising how one and others should deal with it remained at her core. It was her privilege and motivation to be involved with a group of OT’s, PT’s, speech therapists, and related professionals in the formation of an organization that would emphasize working in practical terms with children and adults with autism spectrum disorder. The Itineris Foundation developed out of their work and commitment to create an organization and to find funding for it. The early development was slow but it has now reached success to the point of having an annual budget that exceeds $1 million and it has almost 150 clients. Itineris is teaching persons ‘on the spectrum’ how to live independently and is also having wonderful success in placing its adult clients in the Baltimore workplace.

In the days of her final illness, consistent with the energetic life she lived, Elaine remained involved in working with family and friends, and families having members with

autism, to enrich their lives. In lieu of having flowers sent in her honor she wishes friends to support Itineris, of which she was a co-founder, with donations made in her name via the Itineris website:https://www.itinerisbaltimore.org/

A celebration of Elaine’s life will take place in the Itineris building in the coming months.

Online condolences may be made to the family at www.peacefulalternatives.com