Walter arrived at Milton in September 1971, fresh from graduate school at Harvard. He was 33. A long way from his native New Orleans, Walter remembers walking into Forbes House with his wife Josephine during his job interview. Teachers were taking postprandial naps with newspapers over their faces. The room had the feel of, in his words, “a broken-down men’s club.” Suddenly New Orleans did not seem that far away. He thought it all “just felt right.”
Since that fateful September, Walter has seen six heads of school, taught more than 20,000 classes, and watched the English department build to a cohort of famous figures who gave it its modern identity. He and Joey raised their children, Rob and Caroline, who graduated from Milton in the ’90s.
With his energies trained on the classroom, Walter shared his literary passion with generations of students. Discussing literature, particularly the Americans, is his mainstay. He prepares for each class now as he did then: reading with care texts that he knows almost by heart. If you interrupt him during these preparations, he will look up quickly and say, “You know, Henry James amazes me… .” When students are under his care, classes begin with banter, the discussion—before anyone has noticed—begins, and then students are taken on a tour of the inner workings of Shakespeare, Hawthorne, Melville, Faulkner, demanding authors that Walter explains with ease and expertise, as if they were old friends.
Walter is always friendly, thoughtful, poised and ready with a laugh. He would bristle at the epithet “Southern gentleman,” but he is one of a kind in these parts. Walter knows how to have a good chat or take a little ribbing without casting an aspersion. He meets his students as they are, avoiding judgment and perhaps offering greater sympathies to those who are transplanted, like himself. He tells you what he thinks with neither reservation nor a superior air. He does not take intellectual shortcuts; he doesn’t do bullet points. To him, the Internet is a mild inconvenience that’s better left unexamined. And don’t let his newly acquired cane fool you: Every big laugh in the department’s hallways or at our gatherings comes from silver-tongued Walter. Around Walter we all relax a little more, laugh a little more.
We are sad to have Walter retire. We hope to keep his finest qualities within us: an exquisite literary sensibility, a gentle hand with students, and a congenial heart for colleagues. We will never know another like him. Thank you, Walter, for all these years of extraordinary teaching and warm company.
Tarim Chung, Chair, English Department