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First
Row: (L to R) John Wheeler Walker (holding Dubois Walker) his
wife, Isabell Dawson Walker (holding Jeannette Hall and Clara Lee
Hall), Ulysses Grant Walker sitting next to his wife Lillie Bell
Clark Walker. Standing just behind them is their son, Homer Decosta
Walker.
Second Row: Cicero Columbus Arrington standing beside his
wife of one week, Lillie Bell Walker Arrington. Next to them is
Mollie Walker Davis, holding daughter Jesse Ola Davis. Next is Flora
Owens Walker and husband, Daniel Wheeler Walker (holding son Emery
Walker.) Next is Carrie Walker Freeman and husband, Grover Cleveland
Freeman (holding daughter Beatrice Ophelia Freeman.) Next to Grover
Freeman is Nannie Walker Hall with husband Cleveland Hall (holding
son Charles Hall.)
Third Row: Wade Taylor Davis (standing behind his wife Mollie
Walker Davis and daughter Jessie Ola.) Standing beside Wade Davis
is Minnie Towns Walker and husband Conley Landis Walker (holding
daughter Frances.)
A
Short History of the John Wheeler Walker Family by Ruby Bell
Arrington Hollen
John
Wheeler Walker and Isabell
Dawson Walker had ten children. The oldest
son was Ulysses Grant Walker. After U.G. Walker came three other
sons, Homer, Emery and Gordon. These three younger boys all died
in one week of diphtheria! John Wheeler Walker gave the land for
a family cemetery and chapel out at Black Mountain, N.C. were the
boys were buried. It is now known as Homer's Chapel, named after
the first son to be buried there. Their young graves are side by
side there today.
Several
other children were born while living in Black Mountain, on land
across from Homer's Chapel. After a number of years the John Wheeler
Walker family moved to Cherry Springs, just outside of Old Fort,
N.C. in McDowell County. They had a farm there. Their old home place
stood where the new cemetery is at Cherry Springs today. The other
children were born while they lived there. John Wheeler Walker gave
the land for the Baptist Church and for the free cemetery which
is at Cherry Springs today.
Addendum:
The John Wheeler Walker Family
"As
you can tell from what Ruby has to say about the Halls, and many
of the Walkers, they were, as Gran so quaintly put it,'eaten up
with cancer,' and many of the Halls and Walkers died at an early
or at least early middle age." Robert W. Bell.
On
June 18, 1983 Lillie Bell Walker Arrington, the last surviving member
of John Wheeler Walker and Lillie Bell Clark Walker's ten children,
died of heart failure at the age of 86. Some years earlier Ulysses
Grant Walker, the oldest child, died in a car crash in Old Fort,
North Carolina . Daniel Wheeler Walker and his twin sister Nannie
Walker Hall both died of cancer. Daniel Walker died of what my cousin
(1C1R) Ruby called "gangrene of the lungs" at the age
of 37 and Nannie died the following year of cancer at the age of
38. Nannie's daughter Clara Lee Hall ( the little girl being held
by my great-grandmother Lillie Bell Walker in the picture above)
also died of cancer.as did Carrie Walker Freeman and her daughter
Madeline Freeman Miller. The rest of the Walker children (Conley
Landis Walker and my grandmother Mollie Walker Davis) died from
heart failure.
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