Camp REACH student reporters, Ester Tallman and Ja’Rya Zulueta assisted in reporting this story.
1848 — 1969
Long before she became nationally known as the nation’s oldest student, Mary Hardway Walker spent her days sitting on the front porch of her small brick home on what is now Martin Luther King Boulevard.
From that porch, Walker greeted neighborhood children, including Tyrone Gamble, who knew her as a young boy in the early 1960s.
“I always helped her get out on the porch,” said Gamble, now 71 and a resident of Mary Walker Towers. “She would say hi and bye and tell me I was going to have a good day.”
Walker used a wheelchair and sometimes struggled to get through her screen door. On his way to the YMCA, Gamble would stop to help her outside. He visited her many days each week.
At the time, neither Gamble nor the other children knew they were helping a woman who would become a national symbol of lifelong learning.
Born into slavery in 1848, Walker spent most of her life unable to read or write. Yet she never gave up on her dream of learning. In 1963, at age 116, she joined the residents’ literary society at the Chattanooga retirement community that would later bear her name and began attending night classes twice a week.
Walker was especially motivated by a desire to read the Bible for herself. Her progress quickly gained national attention. The U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare recognized her as the nation’s oldest student, Chattanooga named her an Ambassador of Goodwill, and she received recognition from Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon.
Today, her story continues to inspire new generations. During the first week of Camp REACH, students researched Walker’s life and reflected on her determination.
“One thing that surprised me was that she learned to read at 116 and lived to be 121,” wrote 12-year-old Akeem Thompson.
Gamble believes Walker’s story also teaches respect for elders.
“When I was growing up, I was told to look up to your elders,” Gamble said. “That’s how I ended up knowing who she was.”
Walker died in 1969 at the reported age of 121. The retirement home where she learned to read was later renamed Mary Walker Towers in her honor. The woman who once sat quietly on her front porch encouraging neighborhood children continues to inspire others to dream and learn..