Dr. Stuart H. Walker

Dr. Stuart H. Walker, age 95, died Monday, November 12, 2018, at his home in Annapolis, MD, after a brief illness. Born in Brooklyn NY in 1923 he attended school in Hartsdale NY and graduated from Bronxville High School. He was an American Olympic yachtsman, writer and professor of Pediatrics. He competed as a 5.5meter sailor at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico and was a member of the US sailing team in the 1979 Pan American Games. He won many international and national championships in the Soling Class and in the International 14 Class was the first American to win the Princess Elizabeth trophy in 1961 and the Prince of Wales trophy in 1964. Survived by his beloved wife Patricia Empey Walker, his daughters Susan and Lee, grandsons Stuart and Ian, great grandsons Ty and Sam, as well as Patricia's three children Martha, Bruce and Paula. He was predeceased by his parents Robert O. and Alice T. Walker, his brother Barry, and his first wife of 67 years Frances Taylor Walker. He graduated from Middlebury College class of 1943 and the New York University Medical School. He served in the US Army 11th Airborne Division in Japan following World War II and remained in the Army until 1953 when he opened a pediatric practice in Annapolis MD. He became a full professor of Pediatrics at the University of Maryland Medical School in 1961 and was Chief of Pediatrics at Mercy Hospital in Baltimore until his retirement in 1984. He was the author of 11 books on sailboat racing, a lecturer and sailing magazine columnist. He was a founding member of the Severn Sailing Association in Annapolis, served as Commodore and was President of the International Soling Class from 1991-94. His sailing career spanned more than 70 years - from the 1940s, racing Venturer a Q class boat , in Long Island Sound with his father - to winning races in his Soling with Bruce and Owen Empey in Annapolis in 2018. Funeral services will be held at St. Anne's Church on Saturday Nov. 24 at 11am.