Dr Jerome Walker Jr.

October 5, 1938 - October 16, 2025

WALKER, Jr., Dr. Jerome Massee

The man stopped backpacking at eighty. No event, save that birthday triggered this. He reasoned that, eleven miles say into the backcountry on foot, things could go wrong that he might not survive. It was years later, consulting a doctor for knee pain that Jerome was advised to stop jogging. He did. But he still hiked. He canoed. He sailed anytime he could. He photographed the wild country. He travelled. He Tangoed. And practiced Spanish. Returning from Walmart in Mesilla, NM, where we often wintered, he said, "All the signs are bilingual. I can learn vocabulary while I shop for groceries!"

Known by the company we keep, he was Belle's (our Lab) dad. They retrieved. They jogged. They walked. She swam. They had their happy hour ritual in which, over his exactly five ounces of wine (the first four days of the bottle) and cashews, he hand fed her part of her dinner a few kibbles at a time. Belle began drooling when she saw the measuring cup appear. If you had the time—he was after all Southern—he would recount his worst camping trip ever, and as an Eagle Scout and Order of the Arrow, he'd been on many: with Belle in the Mission Mountain Wilderness. A story involving bear spray, rain, her chewing out of the mosquito netting and escaping. Ask us.

A life-long activist, he channeled recent energy into pithy and sometimes ironic LTEs (letters to the editor) usually on politics, wilderness, or environmental matters. He—with others—sued the State of Montana, its Public Service Commission, and the utility providing power to our home for rate shenanigans. They won, but the Montana legislature reversed that. It was likely his early anti-nuclear work with Physicians for Social Responsibility that brought the FBI to his medical office to have a little "chat" with him.

Born October 5, 1938, the only child of Mary Jim Oliver and Jerome Massee Walker Sr., Jerome grew up in Marshallville, Georgia, surrounded by family and peach orchards. Early jobs at the family packing plant included painting glue on basket labels and later slapping labels on those baskets. One of his delights on moving to Montana was discovering the micro-climate that allows for growing excellent organic peaches. Another summer he delivered school buses from the Blue Bird Plant in nearby Fort Valley, Georgia. His permanent record may still include a small incident in Tyler, Texas, something about passing on a hill. His mother dutifully started him on piano lessons, but after mastering "Glow Little Glow Worm" and "Dixie" (that was the 1940s), he figured he'd achieved the pinnacle of his musical performing and became, instead, an engaged and avid listener, especially of jazz. From driving a mule-drawn cart gee and haw as taught by their farmhand, Charlie Humphries, Jerome adopted electric vehicles, using them for extended trips in the intermountain west, a mode of travel not for the faint of heart in 2018.

After college and medical school at Emory University, he did his neurology residency at Tulane before spending two years in the Navy on what he referred to as "The Pensacola Campaign" and receiving an honorable discharge as Lieutenant Commander Walker. He established his medical practice in Decatur, Georgia, where he lived until his 2014 move to Montana.

Jerome is survived by his: wife, Marcia Williams; children with his first wife, Melissa Graves Walker who died in 2011, Richard Walker (Molly Freeman) and Laura Sanchez; grandchildren, Joseph Walker, Max Walker, and Alan Sanchez; step-daughter, Morgan Ogilvie (Joel Rice); many cousins, friends; and of course, his beloved Labrador, Belle.

The family extends its deepest gratitude to each staff member of Partners in Home Care and Hope Hospice Center of Missoula.

In lieu of flowers, please consider contributions to the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana Foundation, PO Box 1968, Missoula, MT 59806; or Wilderness Watch, PO Box 9175, Missoula, MT 59807; or the charity of your choice.

A memorial service will be held at 3:00 PM Mountain Time on Sunday, November 16, 2025, in the Dell Brown Room in Turner Hall of the University of Montana. A remote link will be available; for those credentials, contact the family directly or through Sunset Memorial 406-549-2857.