son George Herbert Walker, known as Bert, bought land in Kennebunkport, Maine, so the family could escape the industrial heat of Missouri summers, and he wintered in Santa Barbara, traveling to California by private train. He drove motorcars and raced horses and became a pillar of St. Louis society. By the time of his death in 1918 at the age of seventy-eight, D. D. Walker had piloted his family into the Social Register, no small feat for the penniless son of a failed farmer from Bloomington, Indiana.
Several years before he died, he started giving away money; within four years he had disposed of $300,000 ($3.6 million in 2004). His two sons, who stood to inherit his great wealth, were incensed. They went to court in St. Louis to declare their father insane and obtain a writ of prohibition against any further disbursements of his estate. Bert Walker, who testified that his father was “squandering” his money, asked the court to find him mentally incompetent and to appoint a legal guardian to manage his financial affairs. D. D. Walker then sued his sons as well as Ely, Walker and Company for money he said he was owed. After Bert’s court testimony, the jury found that his seventy-year-old father “was of unsound mind.” This finding was overturned by a higher court judge for technical reasons, and the matter was returned to probate court for retrial in St. Louis. D.D. appealed to the state supreme court, arguing that since he lived in California, his sanity could not be tried in Missouri. The appeal of the jurisdictional issue was pending when D.D. died on October 4, 1918, in Kennebunkport. The next day
The St. Louis Republic
reported that his two sons, George Herbert and David Davis Junior, “were too ill last night to discuss funeral arrangements.”
To the very end of his life D. D. Walker believed he was a just man who gave every man a fair shake. He never acknowledged that life’s playing field might have been more level for the rich and healthy than for the poor and handicapped whom he wanted killed at birth. His large grave site in Calvary Cemetery, the resting place of St. Louis Roman Catholics, attests to his sense of self-righteousness. Flocked by elaborate granite crosses, adoring cherubs, and all sorts of praying angels, David Davis Walker is buried under the words he said he lived by: “All Through His Life He Tried to Give Everyone a Square Deal.”
His forty-three-year-old son, George Herbert Walker, the fifth of six children, defied his father at every turn. His anger toward the unforgiving D.D. drove Bert to the unbounded success that eventually made the Walker family the financial ballast of the Bush dynasty.
Bert Walker had attended school in England, at the behest of his ferociously religious father, who prayed he would return a priest. Instead, he came back a defiant anti-Catholic and fell in love with Lucretia “Loulie” Wear, a Presbyterian from St. Louis.
“If you marry her in a Presbyterian church, you’ll go straight to hell,” D. D. Walker told his son.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” replied Bert. “I’ll go straight to hell if I don’t marry her.”
Bert married her out of the Catholic Church, and his father refused to attend the wedding.
Bert rejected his father’s Democratic politics; he even turned his back on his own friend Franklin Roosevelt and joined the Republican Party.
D. D. Walker had boycotted the Union Pacific Railroad because he said its owner, “E. H. Harriman, was hogging all of the railroads in the country.” Bert Walker went into business with Harriman.
Bert abandoned his father’s dry-goods business to build his own investment empire, topping his father’s fortune many times over. He, too, drove motorcars, but his were Rolls-Royces. He became the first president of the Automobile Club of Missouri. He also raced horses, but surpassed his father by buying his own stables (Log Cabin Stud) to breed champions. He served as a New York state racing
Several years before he died, he started giving away money; within four years he had disposed of $300,000 ($3.6 million in 2004). His two sons, who stood to inherit his great wealth, were incensed. They went to court in St. Louis to declare their father insane and obtain a writ of prohibition against any further disbursements of his estate. Bert Walker, who testified that his father was “squandering” his money, asked the court to find him mentally incompetent and to appoint a legal guardian to manage his financial affairs. D. D. Walker then sued his sons as well as Ely, Walker and Company for money he said he was owed. After Bert’s court testimony, the jury found that his seventy-year-old father “was of unsound mind.” This finding was overturned by a higher court judge for technical reasons, and the matter was returned to probate court for retrial in St. Louis. D.D. appealed to the state supreme court, arguing that since he lived in California, his sanity could not be tried in Missouri. The appeal of the jurisdictional issue was pending when D.D. died on October 4, 1918, in Kennebunkport. The next day
The St. Louis Republic
reported that his two sons, George Herbert and David Davis Junior, “were too ill last night to discuss funeral arrangements.”
To the very end of his life D. D. Walker believed he was a just man who gave every man a fair shake. He never acknowledged that life’s playing field might have been more level for the rich and healthy than for the poor and handicapped whom he wanted killed at birth. His large grave site in Calvary Cemetery, the resting place of St. Louis Roman Catholics, attests to his sense of self-righteousness. Flocked by elaborate granite crosses, adoring cherubs, and all sorts of praying angels, David Davis Walker is buried under the words he said he lived by: “All Through His Life He Tried to Give Everyone a Square Deal.”
His forty-three-year-old son, George Herbert Walker, the fifth of six children, defied his father at every turn. His anger toward the unforgiving D.D. drove Bert to the unbounded success that eventually made the Walker family the financial ballast of the Bush dynasty.
Bert Walker had attended school in England, at the behest of his ferociously religious father, who prayed he would return a priest. Instead, he came back a defiant anti-Catholic and fell in love with Lucretia “Loulie” Wear, a Presbyterian from St. Louis.
“If you marry her in a Presbyterian church, you’ll go straight to hell,” D. D. Walker told his son.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” replied Bert. “I’ll go straight to hell if I don’t marry her.”
Bert married her out of the Catholic Church, and his father refused to attend the wedding.
Bert rejected his father’s Democratic politics; he even turned his back on his own friend Franklin Roosevelt and joined the Republican Party.
D. D. Walker had boycotted the Union Pacific Railroad because he said its owner, “E. H. Harriman, was hogging all of the railroads in the country.” Bert Walker went into business with Harriman.
Bert abandoned his father’s dry-goods business to build his own investment empire, topping his father’s fortune many times over. He, too, drove motorcars, but his were Rolls-Royces. He became the first president of the Automobile Club of Missouri. He also raced horses, but surpassed his father by buying his own stables (Log Cabin Stud) to breed champions. He served as a New York state racing
Similar Books
