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The Walkers On Washington（英文）

By Jane Geiler

1998年9月至10月

此内容暂无简体中文译文，以下为英文原文。

Historical September–October 1998 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.

“(R)ead a life backward as much as forward.” James Hillman.

When one talks with George and Bobbie Walker of the 6100 block of Washington, one speaks in decades. Everything they do, they do for a long time. Everything they’ve done, they’ve done for a purpose, a definite, no-nonsense reason. One can count on the Walkers.

They are Mr. and Mrs. America.

If you want to understand the solid, responsible, firm foundation of the Rosedale neighborhood, look to the Walkers.

On June 28, George and Bobbie tied the knot and began a lifetime together. That was four decades ago. George has owned his own company for three decades and, in addition, he worked for GM for over two decades, retiring after 23 years.

In July three decades ago, the Walkers moved to their present. home.

They have been my neighbors for two decades. George and Joe Geiler, who are the same age, both attended McBride over four decades ago!

But who’s counting?

The Walkers came to Washington Ave. looking for a “spacious” house to accommodate their family of three boys, and thereafter also a girl.

They had looked “on the northside”, but found rooms too small. George knew two people from GM who lived here. Those folks are long since gone, but Flossie and Frank Driscole, the first people that the Walkers met upon moving, remain -good neighbors,” who “came down to meet us” right away.

For a period of time, the neighborhood “got rowdy, ” reported Bobbie. “Kids were a problem and crime was sorta rampant.” “We thought we’d have to leave.” A low point was a nun’s being held up at St. Roch.

The Walkers helped form a Neighborhood Watch. “We walked the streets,” George reports. (Washington University) students (living in the area) were a big help,” said Bobbie. “They took kids to Wash. U.for swimming” and things like that.

There were (what else?) “about 10 difficult years.” Though never ones to brag, the Walkers obviously pride themselves on all sorts of hard work and accomplishments. Bobbie moved to St. Louis from Georgia “to get an education.” Valedictorian of her high school class, she attended an all-black Methodist college—Payne, back home.

Then she moved to St. Louis where she attended Harris-Stowe the first year it was integrated (1955). Since then, she has also attended Forest Park and Waterson College.

She has worked as a clerk typist, a substitute teacher, a home health nurse and is a Certified Medical Technician.

She would still like to work part-time. (862-6664) Bobbie met George at Soldan where they were attending adult education programs at night. George worked at both the Wentzville and St. Louis plants of GM where he was required by the company to “learn 16 jobs.” He retired as a “mig welder,” who could “weld a car door in 15 seconds.” That job was “the best job on the line,” but “did affect my eyes.” While at GM, George kept his “Walker’s Pest Control” (862-6664) going on the side. Business was so good that “(Me prayed for lay-offs sometimes!” George laughs. George and his son John still run the business. George guarantees he can get rid of any pest except squirrels where the only remedy is “trap ’em.” He once got rid of bees in a woman’s house by listening to the walls to locate the queen, but his specialty is roaches. “If you can get rid of a roach, you can get rid of anything.

A termite is nothing but a sissy compared to a roach!” George Walker is not one to respect sissies.

From 1963-65, George was active in C.O.R.E.

He participated in boycotts and marches and was arrested once for demonstrating at Jefferson Bank. Bobbie completely supported him in this, staying at home with the children while he took risks on the streets in the name of racial equality. George speaks fondly of Congressman Bill Clay for seeing to it that many St. Louis institutions were integrated.

The Walkers will always tell it like it is. Life has not left them and theirs unscathed since the struggles of the ’60’s.

They are greatly troubled by drugs.

He and Bobby having been victims of Jim Crow, George has no truck with any group preaching racial diviSion. And George laments, “Kids now don’t even vote.

This is very discouraging because you fought hard for those things.” No matter how soberingly realistic about their own and society’s problems the Walkers become, they can bounce back quickly to other things that sustain them.

They attend New Cote Brilliante Baptist Church. Bobbie was one of only a handful of black members of Delmar Baptist when the vote was taken by that congregation to move away from the neighborhood.

Now she and George both seem enthused about the transition to New Cote Brilliante.

On the date we met for this interview, they were freshly home from service and both were almost giddy about “the message” they had just heard from a female pastor there: Never short of things to do, Bobbie sews and gardens and is wildly enthusiastic about art. George loves cats. “A cat will always be your friend,” he says. Their present “friend- is named “Randy” after “Mandy” proved to be a male. “Cats are clean,” George repeats. One can find George barbecuing in the backyard in preparation for all the holidays, but he laughs, “I told Bobbie the other day, ‘We have to get some barbecue for the 4th of July’ and she said, ‘The 4th has passed!’ Then I remembered that this year we spent the 4th at son John’s house and John barbecued!” Now that’s a good legacy, a son having taken over the father’s tradition so smoothly that it came and passed without even really registering. That makes the decades worth it.