Pat Walker
Pat Walker, a philanthropist and co-founder of the Willard & Pat Walker Charitable Foundation, died Friday at her home in Springdale. She was 97.
Walker had been inducted into the Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame just a few days earlier, on Aug. 25.
She and her husband, Willard, founded their foundation in 1986 with a focus on health care and education. Pat and Willard Walker had what she described to Arkansas Business as “modest upbringings,” and “always believed that people should have the tools to reach their full potential.” She added, “Having a solid education and good health is critical to this.”
The Walkers started their foundation because “we felt so blessed with what we had, that it was our job to give back,” Walker said when interviewed for a recent profile of her. The foundation provides grants to nonprofits to improve health care and promote education. Specifically, Walker said, the foundation has helped eliminate financial burdens through student scholarships and believes that “access to quality health care shouldn’t be a privilege.”
Willard Walker was the first manager of Sam Walton’s Five & Dime store in Fayetteville and later managed a Wal-Mart Store in Springdale. When the company went public in 1970, Walker took out bank loans to buy as much stock as he could. He retired from Wal-Mart a wealthy man, and the couple devoted themselves to philanthropy in northwest Arkansas and throughout the state.
A number of institutions in Arkansas are named for Pat Walker, among them the Pat Walker Theater at Springdale High School, the Pat Walker Health Center on the University of Arkansas campus at Fayetteville, the Pat Walker Teacher Education Program at the University of the Ozarks, the Pat Walker Center for Seniors at Washington Regional Medical Center and the neonatal intensive care unit at Arkansas Children’s Hospital.
Among the organizations that have received support from the Walkers’ foundation are Ozark Guidance, Circle of Life Hospice, the Jones Center for Families, the Fayetteville Public Library, the Springdale Public Library and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville.
Pat Walker was born Amy Seamans on May 9, 1919, in Boise, Idaho, the daughter of Lula Seamans Gillespie and stepfather Harold Gillespie.
She moved around as a child before settling in Tulsa with her mother after her parents separated. Her mother worked three jobs to provide for them and even paid for her daughter to have private schooling. Walker said her mother’s love and care for her influenced how she felt about helping others, especially children, and she learned how to be a good mother by the example her mother set.
When Walker turned 21, she moved to Coffeyville, Kansas, for a job as a sales clerk at the S.H. Kress department store. That’s where she met her husband, Willard. “We both had similar values and ideas, but we made each other better people,” Walker said. “Helping others seemed to be natural to him, and it was important to both of us. I think we made a pretty good team.”
Willard was working in the stockroom, and the store had a policy against co-workers dating. She said that they were friends outside of work and that is when her life as “Pat” began. He started calling her Pat because co-workers were also not allowed to see each other socially, and it was hoped the nickname might throw the more suspicious people off the trail.
The two were married in 1942 and moved around a lot at first. They then came to and stayed in Springdale, where Willard managed a Wal-Mart.
Pat worked several part-time jobs, including at the junior high school and even selling real estate. Willard entered the local real estate sector as a rancher and member of the American Charolais Association. Their Charolais cattle ranch is still in east Springdale.
The also raised their two children, Patricia and Johnny Mike, in Springdale.
Willard Walker died in February 2003. He was 81 and the couple had been married 61 years.
Pat Walker called her family her greatest accomplishment. In addition to daughter Patricia Walker of Dallas and son Johnny Mike Walker of Fayetteville, Pat Walker is survived by seven grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.
Pat Walker received a number of awards in addition to being inducted into the Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame, including the 2002 American Heart Association Tiffany Award, the Distinguished Service Award from the Razorback Foundation and the Distinguished Service Award from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. She was named one of the Most Distinguished Women in Arkansas.
Walker was inducted, along with her husband, into the Towers of Old Main in 2001. She was a longtime member of the UA Chancellor’s Society and UAMS Chancellor’s Society and served as honorary chairperson in 2005 for the Komen Ozark Race for the Cure.
Walker was a member of Spring Creek Fellowship church of Springdale, formerly First Christian Church, where she taught Sunday school.
A memorial service will be at 5 p.m. Thursday at the Springdale High School performing arts center. A church service will be held at 2 p.m. Friday at Spring Creek Fellowship, followed by a private burial.
The family will receive friends from 5-7 p.m. Wednesday at Sisco Funeral Chapel in Springdale.
Arrangements are by Sisco Funeral Chapel. To read Walker’s obituary or sign the online guestbook, visit the chapel online here.
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