Lilly Belle Hall-Walker
Mar 29, 1927 - Feb 21, 2014
Posted by: Martha Reddout

Lilly Belle Walker was born March 29, 1927 in Sweetwater, Oklahoma to Floyd T. and Hazel Davis and passed away on Friday, February 21, 2014 at the age of 86 years 10 months and 13 days.

Lilly attended Buffalo schools and was once kicked off the school bus for punching some kid who was picking on her little brother, Wayne. As a teenager, she complained that her daddy was strict: He wouldn’t let her drink coffee. At 17, she lied to her parents about going on a… school trip to Carlsbad Caverns and instead eloped with Clyde Hall Jr. in Oklahoma City. Her daddy was furious.

While Junior shipped off to the Navy, Lilly attended business school in Tulsa. Their marriage produced three children, Gary, Susan and Becky. They lived in Sayre, where Junior worked for the state highway department and Lilly worked variously for the county assessor’s office, as a cook in the dorm at Sayre Junior College and at Ace Hardware.

Lilly loved to cook—she called that her special talent. She also loved a big garden. Many a summer meal included fried okra, black-eyed peas and cantaloupe. She especially loved to bake and delighted in surprising friends and neighbors with a loaf of banana bread or lemon meringue pie. She took great pride in providing dishes to church dinners that disappeared in a flash.

She loved going to the lake and fishing. Many a summer’s evening after the day spent at Lugert, she could be seen contently relaxing in a camp chair as the sun dipped toward the horizon. She treasured son Gary’s tradition of taking her fishing every year for Mother’s Day.

After the death of her first husband, Lilly moved to Lake Texoma where she could spend more time near the water. She lived there with a protective schnauzer named Molly who knew all about going to the drive-thru for ice cream or a hamburger.

There she met Bert Walker at a senior dance. They married in 1994 and lived in Duncan. They moved to Oklahoma City in 2011.

During these years, she attended myriad classes on computer-enabled embroidery and spent many hours sewing quilts, T-shirts and other gifts.

She was adventurous even as a seventy-something grandma. She once told grandson Lane, “I’ll try anything once!” as she joined him on the big squiggly slide at the water park.

She loved the color red and sparkly clothes. Nothing pleased her more than going to a dress-up event. But she also took a lot of ribbing in Bert’s family for her red boots.

Before devices that send out reminders, Lilly remembered everyone’s birthday. While at the hospital last week, the thing on her mind was that her sister Patsy’s birthday was Friday.

She was a member of Canadian Valley Baptist Church in Yukon.

She was preceded in death by her first husband, Clyde Hall Jr.; son, Gary Hall, both of Sayre; her parents, Floyd T. Davis of Tulsa and Hazel Brooks of California; her stepmother, Ethel Davis of Tulsa; and her brother, Wayne Davis, of Sand Springs.

She is survived by her husband, Bert Walker of Oklahoma City; two daughters, Susan Hall of Louisville, Ky. and Becky Johns of Greenwood, Ind.; three sisters, Patsy Acton of Elizabethtown, Ky., Bette Richmond of Surprise, Arizona. and Phylis Molina of Austin, Texas; her cousin, Bill Locke of Lubbock, Texas; three grandchildren, Jessi Johns and Lane Johns of Greenwood, Ind., and Austin Stollhaus of Louisville, Ky.

She is also survived by Bert’s children, Don Walker of Ocala, Florida., Jim Walker of Jones, OK, Ronda Walker-McDaniel of Mustang, OK, Barbara Howell of Edmond,OK and Phyllis Reed of Wisconsin; 6 grandchildren Jesse Love, Elizabeth Walker, Sheena Zahler, Ryan Howell, and Jonathan and David Walker.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.

Services will be Wednesday, February 26 at 1:00 PM at Rose Chapel, Sayre. Burial will be at Buffalo Cemetery under the direction of Rose Chapel Funeral Service. Condolences can be made online at www.whineryfs.com.