When I became a member of staff at the Anguilla National Trust in January 1996, it struck me immediately that public relations would be an important part of my job even though that was not explicitly stated in my job description. Therefore when Mary Walker and her husband Eugene stepped through the door for what was to be our first of many productive meetings, I heard their American accents and immediately began my PR spiel, which the Walkers politely tolerated. I was totally embarrassed when the then Director of the Trust introduced them as friends of Anguilla who had been visiting the island on an annual basis for some time and more so when I found out that in some regards they knew more about Anguilla than I did. It was from Mary’s Anguilla Flora Project that we learned so much about the plants growing on our island and from this project, the Anguilla National Trust has been able to share categorised plant lists with students, developers, consultants, government agencies and others.

In 2000 when it became evident that movement for Gene was increasingly difficult and the Trust doubted that these two resilient senior citizens would be able to make it back to Anguilla, we went up to their Hotel de Health seaside villa at Seafeather Bay and presented Mary with a Certificate of Appreciation for her work in Anguilla. Remarkably, after meeting the challenges posed by various ailments and bouts of surgery in 2001, the Walkers were back in 2002 and the Anguilla Beautification Club Environment) made haste to organise a short ceremony to recognise and award Mary for her work. Because Mary is the one who was more actively engaged in the Anguilla Flora Project, she was more visible as she lead flora walks, consulted with Anguillians on the use of medicinal plants or worked with volunteers to set up the herbarium specimen cabinet at the Trust, many of you may remember Mr. Walker as Mary’s husband. However, readers of Anguilla Life Magazine may recall that he authored two of the articles published in Anguilla Life some years ago – one on Rainfall and Water Supply and the other on the Hibiscus.

What impressed me most about the Walkers was that they simply refused to spend their golden years in rocking chairs and always reminded me of so many different ways in which Anguillian society can value its elders. Mary shared with me the details of some of their trips together during Gene’s last months. These included a good two-week trip to Canada with a stop to visit family in Syracuse in August and then an auto-train trip to Florida in the Fall to escape the bitter New England winter. The journey by auto-train is about 500 miles as against 900 miles by road. Mary described the trip as “a nice adventure” but Gene fell ill shortly after they arrived and was hospitalised for six days. He then seemed to recover and was strong enough to ride his mobility scooter on various boardwalks in nature centres, swim, enjoy a few favourite restaurants and to purchase his last book, Anthony and Cleopatra, because he had been reading Shakespeare lately.

Even as we mourned the loss of some of our older as well as younger Anguillians last week, it was with great sadness that I received Mary’s note informing me of Eugene’s death on December 31st 2002. This column remembers Eugene Walker today by sharing a brief excerpt from Mary’s notes and with her permission, one of several of Gene’s poems that were read at his service. Here’s Mary:
“I do indeed hope to get back to Anguilla by next winter and deal with the herbarium, more on that later. It would be very nice if you shared the poem in your column…Gene loved Anguilla very much and especially all you wonderful Anguillans!”

And here is the poem:

DOWN TO EARTH

Bright Rigel that hangs in the Dipper
Of all the stars in the firmament
Is closest to the sun, but the light
From Rigel takes four full years
In headlong flight to come to us
Through the abyss of endless night.
It may be that earths like ours
With water, blood of life,
Oceans, streams and clouds
Forests, meadows, all creatures rife
Exist there. But we shall never know
For O, that space that man
Can never hope to span
By any cunning artifice
That man may devise.
Dream not of travel through space,
Let us rather practice our skills here
Where we shall be forever confined,
On middle Earth between black chill above
And molten rock below, a fiery hearth,
Our duty to create a world to love,
To make a paradise on Earth.

Eugene H. Walker
July 1998

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