Ina May Day
Submitted by Pollee Walker Kreaps
Kreapsparrot@aol.com
My Father's Grandmother was Ina May Day
From Waldo's memoirs:
E. E. Day owned several general stores in Coshocton, Ohio. His main store was at Tiverton Township. He was a
descendent of Stephen Day. The first books printed in this country came off of Stephen Day's printing presses.
His establishment eventually became the Harvard University Press.
Ina May Day (daughter of E. E. Day) b. 10/28/1871 Coshocton, Ohio d. 1/23/1956 Columbus, Ohio
Ina was of the clan Davidson. She grew up in Tiverton and was a high school graduate. She was just under five
feet in height and plump. She had strawberry blonde hair and pale blue eyes. She was raised in the Christian
Church. She was a deeply religious woman but reserved and dignified in demeanor. All of her five sons greatly
loved and respected her. She always said she had fallen in love with a doctor but married a minister. Although
she had day maids who came in to take care of most of the housekeeping, she did all the cooking and was a
great cook. She enjoyed handwork. She painted in oils, mostly landscapes. She was an accomplished pianist.
One of her lifetime hobbies was to make room-sized rag rugs. For several years prior to her marriage, she
operated a milinery shop next to her father's store at Tiverton. For the fun of it, for years, Ina made hats for
herself and a few friends. I can tell you they were some kind of hats! She was a leader in Church of Christ
women's organizations both locally and nationally.
She and Wilmer were married in her father's house. Wilmer's father, Lewis, performed the marriage ceremony.
That same afternoon they traveled to Hiram College where Wilmer was to start his ministerial studies.
On the Killbuck, Holmes, Ohio farm, she bore five children, all boys.
At the age of 85, Ina died in Columbus, Ohio. Wilmer and Ina had been married for 63 years. Wilmer lived
another seven years and often remarked how much he missed Ina May. They are buried together just outside of
Columbus at Galloway, Ohio in the Sunset Cemetery.
9/19/1893 Ina May married Wilmer Russell Walker in Coshocton, Ohio.
Wilmer b. 7/5/1869 Iowa d. 2/2/1963 Columbus
From my father's (Joseph Walker) memoirs:
Wilmer, the sire of the fourth generation of our Walker ancestry in this country, grew up on the Walker family
farm at the edge of Tiverton. He performed all the usual chores carried out by farm boys as well as attending
the one room school nearby. To supplement his formal education, his mother, Matilda, insisted he read
Shakespeare and classic Greek literature at home.
In 1888, at the age of 19, he became master of the little red school house near Tiverton. Two years later,
intending to become a physician, he enrolled at Tri-State College near Angola, Indiana. For the next three years
he studied medicine but changed his mind and decided to study for the ministry and entered Hiram College at
Hiram, Ohio. In 1895, he began studies at Columbia University, New York. In 1897, he obtained a Master of
Theology degree.
In 1898, he bought a farm near Killbuck, Holmes, Ohio. He sold the farm in 1960 because all of his sons
became "citified" and did not want to live in the country.
Between 1898 and 1914, he served several small country churches in and around Coshocton, Ohio.
He made a living through the buying and selling of farms.
In 1915, he accepted a professorship at Bethany College in West Virginia.
In 1918, he left to start a church in Columbus, Ohio. In 1920, he bought an old house two blocks from the
edge of the Ohio State University campus to be used as an initial church building. Over the next decade, the
Indianola Church of Christ acquired three city blocks which housed a sanctuary seating eight hundred,
a four story recreational building with meeting rooms and twenty classrooms, a dining hall and kitchen,
a gymnasium that had a five hundred person spectator seating capacity with a stage at one end making it
convertible into an auditorium easily seating a thousand people.
In 1928, he and two other clergymen acquired a majority of the capital stock of the Standard Publishing
Company in Cincinnati, Ohio. Its literature was mostly slanted toward Alexander Campbell's simple evangelical
Christianty which was opposed to speculative theology and emotional revivalism. However, at that time,
it also was one of the nation's leading contract printers of every kind of church books and literature.
In 1935, they sold their stock with the proviso Wilmer was to be President and receive a five thousand dollar
annual salary. For 25 years he set theological publication policy.
About five years before his death, Wilmer closed out his savings accounts and liquidated most of his other assets.
He gifted the cash sum of thirty-five thousand dollars to each of his sons; the greater portion, he gave to
several Church of Christ affiliated orphanages.
Wilmer was born with blue eyes and auburn hair. By the age of 30, his hair was grey and he was almost bald.
He was a Republican Party organizer and supported its candidates from the pulpit as well as at political rallies
and was the only clergyman to serve on the guidance committee when the State of Ohio rewrote its constitution.
He was a Scottish Rite Freemason.
He played both the trumpet and violin and could read and write music and he sang well.
His personal library and study took up the third floor of his home. At his death three thousand volumes were
donated to Milligan College.
Ina May and W. R.'s children:
Dean Everest Walker b. 5/18/1898 Killbuck, Ohio d. 1988Was dean of church history at Butler University,
Indian and President of Milligan College, Tennessee, then Chancellor of its Emmanual School of
Religion. He held a Doctor of Theology from New College at Edinburgh University, Scotland.
Errett Day Walker b. 5/13/1900 Killbuck d. 4/1982 Columbus
Donald Fenimore (his gggrandfather was James Fenimore Cooper's brother)
Walker b. 8/2/1904 Killbuck d. 3/22/1964 Tampa, Florida married 10/15/1925 Columbus
Edra Rosetta Schultz b.6/28/1906 Kanawha, West Virginia (still living)
Donald's first job was newspaper delivery. At high school graduation,
he gave the valedictory address. He was an Eagle Scout, a baseball player and wrestled professionally at
local events during college at Ohio State University. At 22, he became Corporate Secretary and Treasurer for a
time chain manufacturer in Buffalo, New York. In 1930, he became Comptroller of Standard Publishing Company.
In 1932, he was placed on the board of directors of Hilton-Davis Chemical Company, Cincinnati, Ohio of which,
in 1943, he arranged a merge with Sterling Drug. In 1946, he and Dr. Wendells and John Hudson bought 49%
of Liebal-Flarsheim and Donald became Chief Executive Officer. He was known to friends and family as
absolutely, uncompromisingly, scrupulously honest. He like to tell jokes and funny stories. He went out of
his way to be kind to everybody and regularly gave money to charities and helped out people who sere down
on their luck. He was a political conservative and a life long member of the Republican Party. He was a
Scottish Rite Freemason and one of the founders of the Mariemont Lodge.
His three closest friends were Dr. Wendells, a Cincinnati surgeon, Robert A. Taft, a Cincinnati attorney and
United States Senator, and John Hudson, a Cincinnati attorney with Taft.D. F. and Edra's children are
Joseph Donald and Jaqueline (Jan) Edra Ann.
Waldo Ruskin Walker b. 1/16/1910 Killbuck Retired as a Senior Vice President of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Barclay Walker b. 12/4/1914 Killbuck d. 2000 California Taught school until his death. He was married
several times.
If you can connect to this family, please feel free to contact me at the above email address.
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