My Story: Patsy Walker
Part Six
TITLE: My Story: Patsy Walker – Part Six
AUTHOR: Patsy Walker
PERMISSION to publish granted by the author
Patsy Walker was born on May 16, 1934 in Knoxville, Tennessee. In December of 2024, about eight months after her husband Moe passed away, she wrote to the Wilma Dykeman Legacy and requested a copy of a Knoxville News-Sentinel column which Wilma wrote in 1977, just after Wilma’s own husband had died. “I loved her writings so much,” Patsy wrote, “but the one about [her husband’s] death just spoke to me! I think it has been my favorite love story of all times! I kept the clipping all these years and was devastated to misplace it after my husband’s death.”
As Patsy and the Legacy corresponded, it became evident that she had written down her memories from growing up in northwest Knoxville. The Wilma Dykeman Legacy is proud to publish these memories for the first time in order to enrich the flesh-and-blood history of Knoxville during the mid and late 20th century. The photo is of Patsy and Moe Walker in later life.
“It’s not been an easy life,” says Patsy, “but it’s been a good life.”
MY STORY: PART ONE
Moe Walker was a snotty-nosed little boy when he was growing up in my neighborhood in Knoxville. He went to Korea with the Army. When he came back, he looked good. He filled out that uniform. He came in 1958 and we married in April of 1959 in my home at 134 Clinbrook Avenue. He worked for Foote Mineral Company in Knoxville as a general laborer. Then they moved the company - but we stayed in Knoxville. Moe went from one job to another. Finally, his GI benefits were about to run out. He decided to go back to school. He went to a trade school over on Liberty Street and became a commercial electrician.
We had 65 married years together. We had 62 of those years in our house at 3021 Wenwood Drive, part of the Glenwood Village subdivision. We had the time of our lives. I'd say, "Do you want to go on a picnic?" And he'd say, "Yes." So we'd go pack us a picnic and have a great time. He was a wonderful man.
My oldest boy is in his sixties, and the youngest is in his fifties. They and their siblings all went to the University of Tennessee and they all have electrical engineering degrees. Two of them are with the Tennessee Valley Authority in Chattanooga, and one of them has retired from Oak Ridge.
It's not been an easy life, but it's been a good life.
