Submitted by Emily O'Neal

Rome News Tribune May 21, 1909


In Memoriam: On Tuesday, May 4, Mrs. J. R. Walker was taken with typhoid pneumonia and lingered and suffered only ten days, when, as the sun was sinking behind the western horizon and enveloping the world in darkness, the Death Angel swooped down and spread his mantle over the form of Mrs. Walker and touched her life with the finger of his mighty power, calling the spirit unto God who gave it. Thus ended the suffering of the body, and the spirit, disenthralled, flitted away on pinions of immortality to join the innumerable hosts of the redeemed in the sweet by and by.
Mrs. Walker was a daughter of William Kidd, whose family consisted of eight children-Alice, Josie, Leola, Willie, John, Jim, Junius and Zack, five of whom still survive.
She was born in Talladega county, Ala., February 27, 1873. The family moved to Georgia in the spring of 1891, and on December 20, 1891, Willie was happily married to John R. Walker, son of Mrs. and Mrs. W. J. Walker of Van's Valley. The Lord blessed their home with ten children-five girls and five boys-Lee, Essie, Walter, Annielow, Norahmay, Harbin, Wallace, Florence, Ruben and Ruth of whom Lee and Walter have preceded the mother to lands "beyond the blue".
Mrs. Walker joined the Missionary Baptist church at Bush Arbor about twelve years ago, and since that time she lived a consistent Christian life.
As a wife she was devoted and true; as a mother she was loving and gentle; as a neighbor she was generous and kind.
I, as her former pastor, take pleasure in testifying to the noble and gentle characteristics of Mrs. Walker as wife, mother, friend and devoted Christian. In her gentle life she illustrated all the great virtues which combine in the good and pure and manifested in her home life all the graces and spirit of self-sacrifice which combine in the true, loyal wife and mother. But her beautiful life work is ended, and she has gone into her bright reward in the golden and glorious beyond.
While we in sympathy with her bereaved and grief-stricken family bow in submission to the divine will, we hereby register our great loss, which we, the church and community have sustained by her going away.
I hereby tender my deepest and tenderest sympathy to the bereaved husband and children in the great loss of their dear wife and mother, which loss to them if irreparable, and commend them to the comforting grace of him who alone can console in season of sorrow and poignant grief.
After a very beautiful and touching service by Rev. J. E. Smith, the body was interred at Bush Arbor, amid a multitude of sorrowing and sympathizing friends and relatives. A.B. Carnes

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