John 'Jack' Richard Walker M.D., 87

Dr. “Jack” Walker passed away peacefully at Heritage Place in Kalispell on Oct. 8, 2016. He maintained his ever-optimistic attitude and integrity until his final moments.

Born in Kansas City, Missouri, on Feb. 11, 1929,he was immediately adopted by Gladys and John S. Walker and raised near Lake of the Ozarks.

During his childhood and prior to attending college, Jack worked as an apprentice in the electrical department at Bagnell Dam on Lake of the Ozarks. He was captain of the mosquito control on 1,500 feet of shoreline. Also on the lake he worked for “A Mile a Minute” race boat many times, commenting that this was by far his absolute favorite job.

He was a child musical prodigy, winning many classical piano competitions. But his first love was playing the cornet at the Jefferson Club in Jefferson City, Missouri, in a jazz and forties band during his high school years and college.

Jack graduated from the University of Missouri in Columbia in 1950 with a degree in geology. Soon thereafter, he was employed by Conoco Oil for five years, after which he decided to follow his doctor grandfathers’ footsteps. He graduated from the University of Kansas Medical School and set up practice as a general practitioner with lots of ER work in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, from 1960-77.

He relocated to Homer, Alaska, for a short time, and after this move he dedicated his career to ER medicine with a three-year stint in Tucson, Arizona. His final move was to Montana in 1982, working for four years in Great Falls before coming to Kalispell Regional Hospital, where he was for nine years.

After retiring in 1995, Jack traveled Montana and Washington as a locum tenens physician in Helena, Missoula, Ronan, Polson, Browning, Libby and Spokane from 1995 to 2004, his second retirement.

He gained great respect for medicine throughout 44 years of practicing, which drove his passion. He treasured the numerous friendships he developed through caring for his patients and co-workers.

In all Jack was a renaissance man, an accomplished photographer, author, musician, outdoorsman and mountain climber, carrying an incredible history of adventure with a love of medicine, nature, music, reading, studying, storytelling, deep friendships, community service, comedy, handwriting analysis, philosophy, gourmet food and wine, sports, karate, boating, golfing, basketball, flying, hunting, wood chopping, live rattlesnake hunting, poker, social drinking and women!

The qualities that distinguished him as a person were patience, calmness, loving, perceptiveness, intelligence, tenacity, humor and wit.

In addition, Jack was a dedicated son, husband and grandfather. He had immeasurable love and pride for his three children and four grandchildren. Many of his children’s friends commented that he was part of their favorite childhood and adult memories.

Not only was he supportive and attentive in his quiet and gentle manner, he also had a way of bringing a smile to any circumstance.

Jack was preceded in death by his parents Gladys and John Walker, his beloved sister-in-law Carmen Gress, and his sons’ mother, Elizabeth.

He is survived by his wife of 35 years, Arlene Zepeda de Walker; his sons, D.J. Walker and wife Candi of Kalispell, Ben Walker and wife Jennifer Cronin of Whitefish; daughters, Pilar Walker of Portland, Oregon, and Annie Schlosser of Seattle, Washington; and four grandchildren, Taggart, Peyton, Jackson and Robert.

There will be a visitation from 5 to 7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 28, at Johnson-Gloschat Funeral Home and Crematory. A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 29, at First Presbyterian Church, 540 S. Main, Kalispell, 406-752-7488.

In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to First Presbyterian Church’s JuJu ministry for homeless youth whose connection is skateboarding.

Doc’s Autobiography

(from his book “Roadside Photography Guide to Glacier National Park,” published in 2005)

I was born on February 11, 1929, in Kansas City and adopted and raised in Eldon, a rural community near the Lake of the Ozarks in southern Missouri. The reservoir that was created in 1931 when the Osage River was dammed was a beautiful place that nurtured in me a lifelong love of the outdoors. When I was 6, a family trip to Estes Park in the Colorado Rocky Mountains kindled in me an intense infatuation with mountains. This led to an undergraduate degree in (what else?) geology. But instead of ending up in the mountains, my first job with Conoco Oil landed me a five-year stint that took me from the deserts of west Texas to the bayous of Louisiana. When I was about to be sent to Saudi Arabia, I quit; I was determined to live in the mountains and to be my own boss.

Following in the footsteps of my grandfather, who was a textbook example of an old country doctor, I decided to get a degree in medicine. After I received my medical degree from the University of Kansas in 1960 and completed a one-year internship, I moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in the splendid Teton Mountains. I spent the next 17 years climbing and hiking these mountains — including the fourth winter ascent of the Grand Teton — which only intensified my awe for the mountains’ magnificence. In the small-town atmosphere of the good old days in Jackson Hole, I was a county commissioner, board member of the Jackson Hole Airport Authority, part-time bouncer at the Cowboy Bar, a camera store proprietor, and a team member of the Teton National Park Rescue Squad, as well as a full-time family physician.

Answering the ever-present call of the mountains, I moved to Montana, where I did emergency room work first in Great Falls, Helena, and then Kalispell. Soon after, my children followed — Dave (D.J.), Ben, and Pilar. This brought me close to one of the most beautiful spots in the nation: Glacier National Park. I was inspired further by an extensive photography workshop organized by Missoula’s Rocky Mountain School of Photography with the renowned Galen Rowell, the greatest outdoor photographer of our time. The memories of that inspirational week in Glacier Park with Rowell will last the rest of my life. Without it, “Roadside Photography Guide to Glacier National Park” would have been unlikely.

Photographing mountains is tricky. You must always keep in mind a proper perspective of the elements of the scene. You also have to anticipate the light and its relationship to the mountains. This dictates where you need to be and what time of day you need to be there. To photograph the early morning beauty on the east side of Glacier National Park, I worked night shifts in the emergency room in Browning, Montana, so I could get into the park at the crack of dawn. The results are some of my best photographs so far. I’ve sold many of these prints, and some of these photographs can also be seen at my gallery, Doc Walker’s Photo Gallery, in downtown Kalispell.

Mountains inspire me. As a geologist and a mountain climber, I feel drawn to explore them. Yet, about the time I was retiring from my career in emergency medicine, I was no longer able to make the highest and most difficult ascents. Photography, I have found, provides me with a sense of intimacy with the mountains. It is a way I can explore their intricacies and moods, which change constantly with the vagaries of the light. With my photos, I have recorded these splendors to the best of my ability in order to convey them to others.

It was mountains, too, that — thirty-one years ago — brought me to my wonderful wife and companion, Arlene Zepeda de Walker. When I lived in Jackson Hole, I ran across a beautiful tourist whom I eventually convinced to marry me. Because of Arlene’s foresight, effort, and generosity, I have been able to make photographic forays to mountains around the world, ranging from the U.S. to Scandinavia, the European Alps to New Zealand’s Fox Glacier, from Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula to Tierra del Fuego in Patagonia, South America, plus Canada, Mexico, Hawaii and the Caribbean.

It is to her I dedicate “Roadside Photography Guide to Glacier National Park.”

— Dr. Jack Walker