William E. WALKER

WALKER, COUNTRYMAN, CUTRYMAN, WOOLFORD

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 10/11/2008 at 10:03:18

William E. Walker

By Cedric F. Walker Ph.D. New Orleans LA --- March 22, 1999

William E. Walker's life (b. 8 Mar. 1831, d. 2 Mar 1926) spanned the term of America's transition from a rural agrarian society to one that's urban and industrialized.

The youngest of 5 children born to George Walker and Polly Countryman (also written as Cutryman) Walker, he left the family farm in Somerset County as a teenager and followed Horace Greeley's famous advice to "Go west, young man."

His older brother, Samuel, was the favored son and William realized that his fortune would not be found on the family homestead. His roaming and mining days came during the age of the great gold rushes to the west.

By 1861 he had moved to Marshalltown, Iowa, where he volunteered in May for a 3-year term of service as a private soldier in the 2nd Regiment of the Iowa Cavalry Volunteers.

His army service included participation in the battle of New Madrid, the siege of Corinth, and many battles(1862-1863) in Northern Mississippi and Tennessee.

Confederate soldiers captured him when his out-of-control horse crossed enemy lines, and he was a POW at the infamous prison camp in Vicksburg Mississippi.

After he was released from Vicksburg he spent much of the remainder of his service in and out of Army hospitals, receiving treatment for a severe eye infection he contracted at the prison camp.

Following discharge from the Union Army as a Corporal in 1864, he returned to Iowa and in 1866 married a young woman from Somerset County. Kate Woolford had been raised by her grandparents, immigrants from Ireland after her parents died during her infancy. Kate and William settled in Albion Iowa, where he was a carpenter, building contractor and house mover. He was awarded US Patent 134,950 for his "Improvement in Trucks for Moving Buildings." In later years, he was a grocer in Clarion Iowa.

Their children were:
- Edmund Lincoln Walker, (b. 14 Jun 1867 d. 26 May 1873) who died in childhood
- Frank Webster Walker (b. 4 Mar 1867 d. 1955)
- Herbert Peter Walker (b. 19 Jan 1875 d. 20 Aug 1960), a house painter who returned to school in his 30s, earning an MD from Creighton in 1915.

His (Herbert Peter Walker's) children were

Edmund Frank Walker (b. June 23 1910) (the author's father)

Herbert Peter Walker Jr. (b. 3 May 1921 d. March 15, 1999)

Bonnie Lillian Walker (b.8 Apr 1881 d. 29 Aug 1953)

Kathryn Edna Walker (b. 1 March 1889 d. 1966) who enjoyed a varied and successful career as a hotelier in San Francisco

William E. Walker died at his home in Clarion Iowa on 2 Mar 1926, just days short of his 95th birthday. His life spanned the transition from family farms to grocery stores with motorized trucks, from candles to light bulbs, and from his own limited education in a one-room schoolhouse to a son who was a physician.

Source unknown
Cedric F. Walker Ph.D. New Orleans LA --- March 22, 1999