E. R. Walker
Our subject is of New England antecedents, his father, William Walker, being a native of Vermont, who came to Ohio when a young man. In Delaware County he met and was married to Catherine Carpenter, a native of that county, and after their marriage they went to live in Brown Township. Franklin County, where the father’s busy life was terminated by his untimely death at the age of forty years. The mother is still living, and makes her home with her children. She owns a farm, that upon which she began her wedded life with her husband. She became the mother of seven children, of whom six are still living, whom she has carefully trained to good and useful lives.
Arch Walker is the sixth child and third son of the family. He grew to man’s estate in his native place, and was educated in the local district schools. He remained with his mother until he was twenty-three years old, affording her great assistance in the management of her farming interests. Since his marriage, in the latter part of 1872, he has resided on the old Dominy homestead in Canaan Township. His farm here embraces one hundred and ninety-seven acres of land that is fertile and well cultivated, and is fully supplied with buildings that are of a substantial order. He also has a good farm of two hundred and fifteen acres in Norwich Township, Franklin County, which is likewise finely improved, and from its rental he obtains a comfortable income. He is engaged in a mixed husbandry, and raises a good class of stock.
The marriage of Mr. Walker with Miss Sophronia, daughter of Alvin and Louisa (Allin) Dominy, was solemnized December 17, 1872, and has been blessed to them by the birth of two daughters and one son, as follows: Louisa, sixteen years old; Alvin, fourteen years old; and Anna, eight years old. Mrs. Walker was born on the old Dominy homestead December 13, 1852, and here her entire life was passed, her death occurring February 15, 1890, while she was yet comparatively young. It was a sad blow to the members of her household, to whom she was devoted, as she was ever an affectionate daughter, a loving wife and a tender mother, and her memory is enshrined in the hearts of those who knew and loved her.
"She brightened all the joys of life,
She softened every frown.
More home-like seems the vast unknown,
Since she has entered there;
To follow her were not so hard,
Wherever she may fare;
She cannot be where God is not,
On any sea or shore;
Whate’er betides Thy love abides,
Our God, forevermore.
Mrs. Walker’s father was born in Darby Township, this county, and died in Canaan Township, with whose farming interests he had been identified for a good many years, in the fifty-eighth year of his age. The mother of Mrs. Walker was born in the village of Endfleld, Mass., and came to Ohio when she was ten years old, with her parents, John and Anna Allen, who first settled in Delaware County, and then in Canaan Township, Madison County. She is the only surviving member of her family. Her three children, two daughters and one son, are dead. She presides over our subject’s household, and has charge of his and her daughter’s children, to whom she gives a mother’s care and love.
Mr. Walker bears a high reputation among his fellow_citizens as a true man, of unswerving rectitude in all his dealings, and of exemplary habits, and they have called him to public offices occasionally. He was Trustee of the township two terms, has been School Director, and in the religious life of the community he is a couspicuous figure as Deacon of the Darby Baptist Church, of which he has long been a member, and takes an active interest in the Sunday-school. He believes firmly in temperance legislation in politics, and is an earnest advocate of Prohibition.
From PORTRAIT AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF FAYETTE, PICKAWAY AND MADISON COUNTIES - Chapman Bros. [Chicago, 1892]