Walker, Viola E Kester – 1859-1942

KELLOGG, KESTER OZMUN, PEASE, STANLEY, STREETER, WALKER

Posted By: Diana Wagner
Date: 9/14/2022 at 08:58:51

Viola E. Walker, oldest child of Aaron and Rebekah Stanley Kester, was born in Laurenceburg, Warren county, Iowa, Jan. 18, 1859, and died at the home of her son in Eugene, Oregon, Oct. 6, 1942.
She was married to F.C.S. Walker of Terre Haute, Ind. In 1879, and lived in that city until the time of his death in 1890. To them were born four children, Mrs. A.J. Streeter of Colfax, Iowa, Fred C., who died in Wyoming in 1921, Otho S., who died in the U.S. Navy in 1907 and Frank P. of Eugene, Oregon. There are seven grandchildren, all living and twelve great-grandchildren of whom eleven are living. Out of a family of seven children, six girls and one boy, two sisters survive, Mrs. Laura Ozmun and Mrs. Sybil Kellogg of San Diego, California.
Mrs. Walker commenced teaching when sixteen years of age and after the death of her husband returned to Iowa and again took up her profession teaching in Jasper and Story counties, then in Nebraska, then later took a claim in ?South Dakota where she taught school several years. She came back to Iowa and settled in Colfax, where she lived about fifteen years, until her health failed to such an extent she broke up housekeeping and went to Omaha to live with her son who later moved to Eugene, Oregon, where she died.
Hers was a very active and useful life, a strong personal character, determined to press ever upward in the betterment of the things of earthly life and proved to the last her strong cultivated mind by the descriptive letters of her wonderful trips through the regions of Oregon, where it was her privilege to travel. She was a member of the Three Quarter Century club.
The silver cord and golden bowl are broken. The spirit of another has left the tenement of clay and crossed the silent river. Another, home has a vacant place made by the crowning of a mother. She was a fond cherished, beloved friend.
(poem not transcribed here)
Interment was made in the Ashton Chapel cemetery at 2:00 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 11, 1942. Services were in charge of the pastor of the Christian church, Rev. A. A. Burr, with short ritualistic service by the Rebekahs.
Mrs. Herbert Pease of Alta Vista, Iowa, a granddaughter of Mrs. Walker read the poem “My Own Shall Come to Me,” by John Burroughs which had been written in 1873 and had been read at Mrs. Walker’s mother’s funeral service.
Source: The Colfax (IA) Tribune; Thursday, October 15, 1942, page 7