ETHAN GRANT
Salem ,
Oregon
May 27,
1975
Dear Oliver:
Your surprise visit Saturday was an enjoyable highlight
of what to any but an odd-ball who lives primarily in books and a peaceful sort
of exile would consider a lonely life.
My only regret is that your presence and that of your charming young
Mike seemed to have triggered my own excess verbiage, inherited naturally from
an extremely talkative grandfather (Grandpa John Davis Walker).
We did touch on the family background and yesterday it
occurred to me you might appreciate having something from the available
records, which I found woefully incomplete. In any event, the enclosed will
provide what I think is an authentic lineage dating from the birth of our Great
Grandfather in 1827(Jacob Shuff Walker). Dabs of supplemental information I
have, plus some memories, may also be of interest.
Grandpa (John Davis Walker) once told me family legend
had it that he was descended from a family of Walkers first settled on Roanoke
Island, Virginia. It may be so, although my histories mention no Walkers among
the immigrants who were settled there by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1587, when three
boatloads with a total of 150 migrants from England arrived. The family,
however, did originate in Virginia and Grandpa had many relatives there. Aunt
Mollie remembers a trip he once made on horseback to visit some of them and has
a picture of him and his horse taken under the Natural Bridge which,
incidentally, is a long, long way for any man to ride a horse from Union
County, Tennessee (Big Springs).
The first mention I can find in my early American history
of a Walker is that of Sir Hovenden Walker, a British fleet commander who in
1710 banged his way into what was then Fort Royal, captured it and founded what
now is Annapolis, Maryland. If the family could be traced to him, you an I could
claim our roots in royalty, which seems to be the prideful aim of so many who
search the Genealogies. My own feelings
about that were recently expressed by my little cartoon feature character, The
People Watcher, when he said:"What's the good of showing the neighbors
where your new genealogy proves your family tree sprouted from European
royalty, when Grandpa horns in and describes how he worked his way over
cleaning pens on a cattle boat."
That also is inherited from Grandpa Walker (John Davis
Walker). It always seemed when he and Uncle Silas Walker got together they
delighted in ridiculing any and everyone they felt were stuffed shirts.
Grandpa (John Davis Walker) was 18 and Grandma(Margaret
Ann Houston) was 15 when they were married.
Grandma's mother died when she was about a year old and her father,
William Jasper Houston, was killed in the battle at Missionary Ridge on 23 Nov.
1863 when Grandma was five years old. She lived with her Grandfather and
Grandmother, James R. and Martha Ann Buchanan Houston (Census records show her
living with her maternal grandparents, Abraham and Elizabeth Goodman Fox).
Grandpa Walker met her when he was hired to come over and help build a fence.
Grandma did the cooking and apparently it appealed to him. I never knew any two
people who seemed more suited to each other or lived all their lives so
thoroughly devoted that I doubt anyone ever heard a cross word between them. He
was rough on others, but solicitous of her welfare and her every want at all
times. I think I knew him far better than any other of his grandchildren for I
spent more time with him. He got out at 4 A.M. every day and for some unknown
reason I woke and piled out to dog his footsteps wherever he went. In
wintertime, he first stirred up a roaring blaze in the big fireplace, then
built a fire in the kitchen range, took his lantern and went to the barn, with
me tailing him. Everyone else slept
until the house was comfortable.
Evenings he and Grandma (John Davis and Margaret Ann) sat
in front of the fire with a big coal oil lamp between them on a little cedar
stand and read, he his Bible and she mostly with a magazine called
"Comfort" and a newspaper called "The Toledo Blade," which
Grandpa wouldn't touch because it told of so many of the worlds evils. About
the only other publication he ever read was "The Baptist Reflector."
He did once tell me he had read two books, one of which I think was authored by
Billy Sunday, the Billy Graham of that era. But it doesn't mean he wasn't an
educated man, in his own way. He spoke good English, could out spell any of the
rest of us and seemed keenly aware of most that was going on in the world. A
died-in-the-wool fundamentalist Baptist, he knew his Bible by heart, almost,
and believed it literally, even to preaching the horrors of fire and brimstone,
which scared the very hell out of me until I finally managed to complete a
formal education at age 28, when I began a long search for the Bible's meaning
as interpreted by the lessons of Jesus.
And nobody could ever doubt Grandpa was full of original
dry wit. I'd often think of him when someone says or writes of happenings
today. For example, Scriveners Scotty Reston
one day last week proposed in his New York Times
commentary that it would promote
peaceful world conditions if the
Washington hotline between Russia and China could be extended to all
other nations. It reminded me of the time our Big Springs community got a
community telephone system. There were about a dozen subscribers all hooked
into a single party line. It seemed that every time it rang, the whole
neighborhood would hurry to get into whatever was being talked about. To
Grandpa it was a nuisance and it annoyed him.
One night after Grandma eavesdropped for half an hour or
so and sat down with some sort of juicy gossip, Grandpa said, "I can
understand how voices can be carried through hollow wires a lot better than I
can understand why they don't get plugged up by so much dirt."
If and when I ever write that book I mentioned to you and
Mike, I imagine there'll be a right smart little bit of it devoted to Grandpa.
Meanwhile, in order to prevent this from extending itself to a lot of surplus
wordage, perhaps I ought to squeeze it off and get back to my present means of
making, a living... As I said, I thoroughly enjoyed you and Mike, and hope
you'll both come back, perhaps with others of your family. And so...
Good wishes,
Ethan Grant
Salem Oregon
May 27, 1975
The following Walker Family statistics were copied from records
in the possession of Mrs. W.M. Hill (Mary Etta Walker) of Knoxville Tennessee,
as part of the total records she has extending back to an earlier period. The disclosure here begins with the parents
of John D. Walker:
Birth Dates Death
Dates
Jacob S. Walker
January 1, 1827 Oct. 4, 1887
Patsy Davis Walker
November 7, 1825 June
1900
Parents of:
Elizabeth November 1, 1847? Nov. 7, 1940
Mahalla March 21, 1849
Martha E.
March 10, 1851? Jan. 27,
1876
William Henry
January 6, 1853
John Davis September 4, 1855 Aug. 23, 1941
Andrew C. July 24, 1857 May 15, 1926
Sterling G September 25, 1859 1890's ?
Mary A. March 23, 1862 Died 6 mths?
Silas A. August 5, 1865 May 21, 1944
Alice E. July 4, 1867 Jan. 18, 1957
John Davis Walker September 4, 1853
August 23, 1941
Margaret Ann Houston
June 13, 1858 July 12,
1944
Married
October 16,1873
Parents of:
William Jasper
August 29, 1891
Anna G.
June 9. 1938
Susan Ellen(Suda)
July 22, 1941
Floyd J. March 13, 1951
Mary Etta (Mollie)
Died: 92 years
Marriages
Anna G. Walker and Houston L. Phipps on September 26,
1885
Parents of Lettye and Molly,
Susan Ellen (Suda) and James R. Grant on August 12, 1897
Parents of Edith J., Ethan C. and William Carlas,
Floyd J. and Nolia Wilson on Dec. 31, 1900.
Parents of William J., Gladys, Caleb, Ben, Oliver J., and
John Graham.
Mary Etta and William Maynard Hill on September 23, 1906.
Parents of Ruth Lynn and Dorothy.