Early Years
Walker was born in 1860 in Steubenville, Ohio, an industrial city in the eastern part of the state with a reputation for racial tolerance. Weldy's name was a combination of the biblical word for wealthy ("weldy") and the surname of English abolitionist William Wilberforce.
His parents, Moses W. Walker and Caroline (O'Hara) Walker, moved to Steubenville from Mount Pleasant, Ohio. His father was a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, a physician, and a leader in Steubenville's African-American community. In June 1870, at the time of the 1870 United States Census, the Walker family was living in Steubenville's First Ward. Walker's father was identified as a minister who had been born in Virginia. The couple had four children listed in the Census: William (age 25), Mary (age 21), Sarah (age 19), Moses F. (age 11) and Weldy W. (age 9). In June 1880, at the time of the 1880 United States Census, the family was still living in Steubenville and consisted of Moses (age 59, clergyman), Caroline (age 57), William (age 35, teamster), Sarah (age 22), Moses (age 21, at school), Weldan (age 19, at school), and Mary Alexander (age 13, adopted).
Weldy attended Steubenville's integrated public high school in the 1870s.
Read more about this topic: Welday Walker
Famous quotes containing the words early years, early and/or years:
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The years of imprisonment hardened me.... Perhaps if you have been given a moment to hold back and wait for the next blow, your emotions wouldn’t be blunted as they have been in my case. When it happens every day of your life, when that pain becomes a way of life, I no longer have the emotion of fear. ... there is no longer anything I can fear. There is nothing the government has not done to me. There isn’t any pain I haven’t known.”
—Winnie Mandela (b. 1936)