Obituary: Kerfoot Pollock Walker Jr.

Kerfoot Pollock Walker Jr. of Tyler, Christian physician and international missions volunteer, died Aug. 21. He was 92. He was born Jan. 27, 1930, in Huntington to Kerfoot and Nell Walker. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology from Hardin-Simmons University in 1951. He earned his Doctorate of Medicine from Southwestern Medical School in Dallas in 1955. His post-graduate internship was at the University of Alabama Medical School and at the Hillman Clinics in Birmingham, Ala. He served as a doctor in the U.S. Navy Reserve from 1956 to 1962. He and Marietta Crowder married on June 29, 1957. The Walkers both finished their internal medicine specialty residencies at Dallas Veterans Hospital. They moved to Tyler in 1960, where he began his private internal medicine practice. He retired from private practice in 1978 to become medical director of the Tyler-Smith County Public Health Department, where he served until 1996. The Walkers applied to the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board in their early 30s, only to be turned down because they were “too old.” Thus began a lifetime of volunteer Christian mission service. In 1960, the Walkers joined Green Acres Baptist Church, where he taught high school Sunday school, served as a deacon and sang in the choir for more than half a century. He planned the church’s first youth mission trip and led many others. He developed the church’s Belize evangelism plan. The Walkers taught Vacation Bible School, provided free medical service, cared for refugees and provided pastors to train other pastors for more than 50 years in more than 30 countries. Beginning with a trip to what is now Belize in 1969, Walker worked with missionaries and fell in love with the Mayan people in the Toledo District. For the next five decades, the Walkers journeyed to the region two to four times a year to provide free medical treatment in remote jungle villages. In 1991, the couple served with Texas Baptist Men at a Kurdish refugee camp in northern Iraq. He also served in Bosnia, Albania and Lebanon. Walker opened The Way of Life, which includes several halfway houses that care for men who are ex-convicts and those struggling with various addictions, helping them to get clean, stay clean, get jobs and change their lives for the better. The original location in Tyler—the Walker House—is named for him. He served as an advisor to YWAM, Calvary Commission, Global Outreach, Chief Cornerstone, Way of Life, Belize missions, Grace Community Church, Living Alternatives and Amigos Internacionales. He was preceded in death by his wife Marietta in 2015. He is survived by son Pete and wife Vicki, daughter Amy and husband James, and son Chris and wife Tracy, all of Tyler; 11 grandchildren: three great-grandchildren; and a sister, Hestermae Nixon of Bullard. The family suggests memorial donations may be made to Bethesda Health Clinic, 409 W Ferguson St., Tyler, TX 75702; Living Alternatives, PO Box 131466, Tyler, TX 75713-1466; Chief Cornerstone, Inc., 8612 Auburn Drive, Tyler, TX 75703, or to another charity.