Written by William M. Walker and his brother Brian Walker
The Walker ancestors had been in Yorkshire County of Northern England for a considerable time when the purchase of a house was recorded in Great Fencote in 1847 by William Walker.
This is a scan of a flood-damaged photograph from the 1970s. How it looks today (from a real estate website).
This is where our grandfather Thomas Walker was born on November 11th, 1858. He was the son of William Walker and Mary Taylor.
He emigrated to Canada in 1898 and settled in Manitoba. He later moved to the west coast in 1900, and then spent a short time in Greenwood B.C. before settling, for good, in Cranbrook B.C.
Our grandmother, Lucy Caroline Reynolds grew up in Bethnal Green, which was among the poorest slums in London at the end of the 19th century. She was the daughter of William Reynolds and Ann Webster.
She emigrated to Canada in 1907 and married Thomas Walker in 1912. Less than a year and a half later she gave birth to the first of two children, Edith.
Edith and William
William is in the back row on the extreme left.
In 1921 William Thomas Walker was born, the future RCAF pilot.
Our father related stories of growing up poor in Cranbrook in a house his father, a stone mason had built (the house is still standing today, preserved by the local Heritage Association, and serves as retail space).
Photo courtesy of Cranbrook Museum and Archives website
School was occasionally displaced by work which included stints in fighting forest fires and working in coal mines.
Dad at a coal mine
He joined the RCAF on September 12, 1942. He was 21 years old. 5 months later, on February 14, 1943, his father died at age 85.
His service ended exactly three years later on September 12, 1945.
He went on to graduate from the University of Manitoba medical school in 1952 and moved with Nell, his future bride, to Calgary where he practiced as a family doctor for 40 years. Beginning at the Colonel Belcher Hospital, he also served at the Holy Cross Hospital, the General Hospital and Grace Hospital where he was Chief of Medical Staff. In addition to his broad general practice, he was also certified as a civil aviation medical examiner.
To be continued…
British Commonwealth Air Training Plan 