[1] Williams is the youngest of four children of the late Major League baseball player Maurice "Dick" Burrus and his wife Rebecca Stevens.
Williams was born September 5, 1941, in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, also the birthplace of her mother.
At two weeks of age, she returned with her mother to Hatteras Island, North Carolina, where the Burrus family lived for generations.
Williams has two sisters, Dixie and Sara, and one brother, Steve, now deceased.
Dennis served in the United States Coast Guard for thirty years.