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- Niagara Gazette, 12 Nov 1943
Chief yeoman Walter H. Becker and Sergeant Technician Louis H. Becker, sons of Mr. and Mrs. Louis G. Becker, of 1711 Pierce avenue, recently visited their parents after a short leave and furlougs. Chief Yeoman Walter has been a member of the United States Coast Guard for the last five years and has served in several ratings at sea and in various stations along the Great Lakes. At present he is assigned to recruiting duty at the Naval District headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio. He is a graduate of the Trott Vocational school and completed several rating courses including one in navigation at Cornell University. He has successfully completed the required examination for officer's training at the Coast Guard academy, New London, Conn., and expects to be transferred in the near future. Prior to his enlisting he was employed in the shipping and planning departments of the Carborundum company. At the present Sergeant Technician Louis is stationed at Camp Pendleton, Va. He has served in the army for the last 18 months, prior to which he served an enlistment in the Navy and an enlistment in the Coast Guard, having been honorably discharged as a machinist's mate, second class in May, 1941. He was employed by the E. I. duPont de Nemours and company before enlisting in the United States Army.
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Walter Becker
Coast Guard Veteran and Realtor
Both Walter and Marion were born near Niagara Falls, New York, Walter on his father's farm, the third of five children. One memory of this time pictures him riding a blind horse to a one-room country school. Unable to sell their produce during the Depression, the family moved into town. Walter was very involved in scouting, an eagle scout and counselor. Growing in "words" he was the editor of his high school yearbook. He and Marion met at a Walther League skating party and were married in 1941. After high school, Walt worked for several local companies, but then followed his brother in joining the Coast Guard. He was first a "surfman" on Lake Erie, still near home. Then, he struck for the yeoman rate, "because they got liberty every night." Successive assignments brought him into recruiting duty in the upper Mid-west at the beginning of World War II. He swore-in drafts of men throughout the region and moved them to boot camp. His and Marion's first child, Wayne, was conceived just before the War, while they were in Detroit, and born in the summer of 1942, on the day of the Battle of Midway. Walter was subsequently transferred to Ketchikan, Alaska, which was being built up as an anchor for resistance to a feared Japanese invasion proceeding down the Aleutian Chain. Walter became a chief yeoman assisting in the setup. The young family waited in a house they bought in Niagara Falls, the first of Walter's many houses, later sold to Marion's parents. As the months and years went by, the fear of an invasion of Alaska diminished and the family was brought together. Their second child, Sandy, was born in the Territory of Alaska just after the War ended. Walter remained in the Coast Guard, and was transferred to Cleveland, living in Army housing forty-five miles distant, then to Baltimore, helping run the procurement and supply functions of the Coast Guard's primary ship yard. He bought another house near Baltimore which he kept and rented out during future transfers. The family moved to Portsmouth in the early 1950's, first living in Westhaven, and then in Cradock, and, life-long Lutherans, joined Redeemer. Walter worked in the Coast Guard district office in Norfolk, made warrant officer and went to sea as the supply officer of the Coast Guard Cutter Ingham doing "weather patrol" in the North Atlantic. He was then assigned to the aircraft repair and supply base in Elizabeth City, (the only place he didn't buy a house,) and then as the supply officer at the air station in Traverse City, Michigan. They returned to Portsmouth, and the house in Cradock, and Redeemer, in 1963, where Walter was the executive officer of the Coast Guard supply base, from which he retired from the Coast Guard in 1965. When Walter left the Service, he continued in the Real Estate profession for which all these moves had prepared him, and he and Marion made their final move to their present home in Deep Creek, valuing Redeemer (and their Redeemer) all the way!
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Funeral remarks for Walter Becker (3/18/1916 - 11/10/2009)
Redeemer Lutheran Church, Portsmouth, Va. 11/14/09 by Wayne Becker
Walter Becker died this past Tuesday at the age of 93. Looking back on his life, I see three themes: a drive to develop himself and subsequent accomplishment, real friendship and compassion for others.
Childhood
Walter was born on a farm in up-state New York, near Niagara Falls, in 1916. There are stories of his riding a blind horse to school, having a job to get there early to start a fire in the stove that heated the one-room schoolhouse. His family moved to town during the Depression. He accomplished a lot, for his beginnings. He was the editor of his school paper, an Eagle scout and scouting counselor. He had one really good friend that he remembered well through the course of his progressive dementia, telling a particular joke, he'd say: ... "old Cocky Hidlebrant, that used to crack him up." Dad had a nickname: "Peaceful." There are things from this upbringing that he carried through life: farming/gardening, a love of outdoors, and an enjoyment of people. He met his wife to be, Marion, at a Lutheran Youth skating party. They were married in 1941, had two children and stayed together for 64 years, through thick and thin, and lots of moves, until she died in 2005. ... please see the pictures!
Work
Walter worked at several jobs before joining the Coast Guard just before WWII, where he was Surfman at a shore station, seaman on a ship on the great lakes, struck for yeoman rate because he said they got liberty every night; was a recruiter in Detroit and a very young CPO when WWII began, we just donated photos of these times to the Coast Guard's history archives -- then he was transferred to Ketchikan, Alaska, when my Mother and I stayed in Niagara Falls in the first
of many houses they bought. In 1945, we were able to join him, and Sandy was born in the Territory of Alaska in 1946. ... then he was transferred to Cleveland, then Baltimore doing procurement for their shipyard, to here, Portsmouth, in the early 1950's, he and Marion joined this church, he worked at the Coast Guard district office in Norfolk, then sailed on the CGC Ingham --- please see the pictures --- then Elizabeth City Air Station, and the CG's Traverse City, Michigan Air Station, as its supply officer, and, by choice, back here as Executive Officer of the Portsmouth Supply Office, and into retirement.
Business Here:
Following his retirement from the Coast Guard, he worked selling real estate, put his heart into it, and, in a few years, formed his own company. He came to own 40 or 50 houses, which he rented. He continued hunting and fishing and gardening: ...( there was one transfer with chickens on the fender, raised rabbits in Cradock, bought a small farm, with horses, he called "Becker's 7 acres," out on Jollif Road.) He always had a large vegetable garden planted in the spring. As he grew older, fellowship with other men became more important. Active in all sorts of clubs and
organizations ... Ruritans, Masons, businessmen's organizations, Isaac Walton league and other outdoors groups. His meeting with the Boys at McDonald's was a morning routine.
Outlook
He saw life in terms of people. He loved his grandchildren. He and Marion contributed substantially to their educations. He was generous in many ways. On one occasion, he made a substantial loan to a man to establish himself in business, failing to repay, he and I visited the man .... he listened to his needs, understood, described himself as a Christian and lent him more money, to my mother's dismay. He supported a number of home buyers and renters. Walter continued to work well into his increasingly frail 80's, managing his rental properties and taking his truck around to make repairs. He also enjoyed researching and picking stocks; his adviser said he did as well as many of the pros. He became a "gentle person", as some elderly men do, always courteous, loving. If he was known for one thing, it is compassion. He would watch television and cry in sympathy with children and animals. His compassion extended to his business relations; many people have said: "I owe Walter Becker my home; I wouldn't be here, but for him." Through the years, a couple of younger men adopted him as "father." He was a good man.
His Disease
For the last good-many years, Walter suffered from progressive dementia; he became more and more distant. In his better years, he collected jokes, later, he got them more jumbled and lost the punch lines, and eventually didn't recognize them. The Spring came when he no longer planted his garden. Marion cared for Walter until her death in 2005, when Sandy moved in with him, and tended to his needs. When he got worse, we moved him to Deep Creek Manor, off George Washington Highway, in Chesapeake. Grant Goldman, Maggie Boone and Alma Lawrence did a great job with him. But, as time went on, still more of his old 'self' was nibbled away. Each trip I made, he was noticeable more diminished, but we could also sense: "He's still in there." Four years ago, we got what proved good advice from an African man who saw Dad enter the hotel for my daughter's wedding: "Don't be sorry for what he's lost, appreciate what's left." Walter seemed to remain happy, it seemed a grace that the disease progressed ahead of his awareness of it. For us it has been what Nancy Regan called a "long goodbye." After each rush to the emergency room recently, he returned less capable. I arrived on Tuesday, coming down to consider placing him in hospice care; he died an hour after I arrived, with my sister and me there, not in apparent pain. God's timing is perfect.
Close
Looking back on his life, I see a drive to develop himself to do, real friendship and compassion for others. We want to express our appreciation the people at DCM, Dr. Kuo, the people of the Church, the friends who have stuck with him, especially Bill Barlow, who visited him to the end, even as he saw him deteriorate, and Pastor Becker, who, visited him most weeks through his last years ... and to recognize, my sister Sandy, who visited him most days. Thank you all; thank God!
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1916 - 2009 (93 years)