SULLIVAN Margaret Hildebrandt Walker (Avey) died July 21, 2019. Peg was a Midwesterner by birth and a New Englander by choice. She ended her journey in Aiken, S.C., where she moved from Maine in 2012 to be near her youngest daughter, Carol Goff.
Born in Columbus, Ohio, on Dec. 21, 1922, Peg was the only child of Albert Edwin Avey and Naomi May Avey (Hildebrandt). The seeds of Peg’s adventurousness were planted by her family’s early travels to Cincinnati to visit relatives, to Florida for her mother’s health and to Europe for her sixth-grade year. After graduation from high school, she attended Denison University in Granville, Ohio, where she made lifelong friends.
Peg worked with the families of enlisted personnel on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, N.M., during World War II. Returning to Columbus, she married Harvey Walker Jr. in September 1945. She completed a master’s degree in psychology at Ohio State University. The couple moved to St. Louis, Mo., where Peg taught psychology to nursing students while Harvey went to medical school. They raised five children, two sons and three daughters. During these years Peg gave countless volunteer hours to the Unitarian Church, school PTAs, Girl Scouts and taught cultural enrichment classes to children in the St. Louis Public Schools.
Divorced in 1970, Peg returned to work full time. She taught in several schools for children with learning disabilities and completed her career teaching special education in a St. Louis public high school. Upon her retirement in 1988, Peg moved to Sullivan, where she spent the happiest years of her life. She bought an old farmhouse and volunteered in the community. She was elected to the local school board, served on the historical society board and helped start a town library.
Peg is survived by four of her five children, Steven Campbell Walker of Sacramento, Calif.; Anne Elizabeth Walker of Bethlehem, Pa.; Ellen Lois Walker of Athens, Ga.; and Carol Naomi Goff of Aiken, S.C. Son David Edwin Walker died in 2006. Peg’s 16 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren have provided their grandma with vicarious adventures. Peg visited all of the U.S. states except Hawaii, and traveled to Europe, Panama and Australia. She worked tirelessly on behalf of learners of all ages, who remember her with loving gratitude.
Services will be private, at the convenience of the family. Memories may be shared at shellhouseriversfuneralhome.com. Contributions in honor of Peg’s memory may be made to the educational organization closest to your heart.