Victor Earl Walker
Born August 24, 1927 Died November 17, 2016
Victor Walker passed away peacefully on Thursday, November 17, 2016 surrounded by his wife Anna Marie Walker and their four daughters.
Born August 24, 1927 in Glendora, New Jersey, he moved with his family to Lansdale, Pennsylvania where he graduated from High School and went on to enlist in the U.S. Army in 1945, traveling to Germany as a radio repair technician, assisting in the reconstruction of the country immediately following the end World War II.
He met the love of his life, Anna Marie Olson, in Cook, Minnesota after he returned from his tour of duty. He was honorably discharged from the army in 1947. The couple married in the Autumn of 1950, after Victor won over Anna Marie’s parents and her siblings with his generosity, good looks and natural charm. Anna Marie carried colorful fall leaves in her bouquet. They built their first home together in Cook, while Victor worked at the local gas station, and
Anna Marie gave birth to four daughters, raising a family that would move to Ontario, California in 1960, trading in the cold northern Minnesota winters for balmy Southern California. After their cross-country trip in a Volkswagon bus, they bought a home they would live in for 55 years, became active in the First Baptist Church and devoted their lives to their children and the community. Together, Victor and Anna Marie taught Bible school, kindergarten, and tended the nursery every Sunday at their church, and then became foster parents, taking in forty-one babies over nearly a decade.
Victor and Anna Marie were the most loving parents imaginable to their own daughters and many friends of their daughters, and while Victor continue to walk his mail route, delivering as much love and care as he did the U.S. Mail, Anna Marie became a beloved day care teacher. Victor continued to sing bass in their church choirs, until the couple retired and set off on an amazing 25-year journey across the United States, visiting nearly every National Park, driving nearly every scenic byway, white water rafting down the Snake River, hiking the great trails, and enjoying countless picnics for two.
A devoted grandfather, Victor loved his three grandchildren more than anything in the world, and they loved him back, and emulated his compassion, tolerance and kindness. Anna Marie and Victor celebrated 66 years of marriage in September 2016, at their new assisted living residence, and in November of this same year moved to Pilgrim Place in Claremont, California, where Victor passed away under the watchful and gentle care of the staff and hospice workers there.
Victor is survived by his wife and best friend, Anna Marie Walker, his four daughters Linda Bonn, Laura McCulloch, Cynthia Artin and Sandra Walker, his sons-in-law Jim Bonn, Don McCulloch and Tom Artin, his grandchildren Max Fulton, Drew Fulton and Delaney McCulloch, and countless relatives across the country. He is survived as well by countless individuals and families he has helped along the way, including the homeless in Ontario whom he and Anna Marie supported for many years by stocking a food pantry.
Victor was admired for his strength, intellect, cheerful nature, selfless generosity and quiet, steady and constant faith. As he gazed into the heavens in one of the many telescopes he and Anna Marie traveled with around America, he never lost his sense of wonder at the vastness of the universe, and will forever be remembered for the depth of his adoration for Anna Marie, his endless love for his family, and his search for meaning beyond his life on Earth.
As a U.S. Military Veteran, Victor was interred at Riverside National Cemetery on Wednesday, November 30, 2016. In lieu of flowers, the Walker family suggests donations to the Food Pantry at the First Christian Church of Ontario, 110 North Vine, Ontario, California 91762.
