Nancy Adams McClellan Walker passed away peacefully June 14, 2019, at her home in Jackson after a short illness.
A Memorial Service will be held at Covenant Presbyterian Church at 3 p.m., Saturday, July 20, 2019, with internment in the Columbarium. Visitation will be held preceding the service from 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm in the church parlor.
Nancy was born October 17, 1931, in Bristol, Virginia to John Chesterfield McClellan and Mary Virginia Trammell McClellan. She was raised in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and attended Ward-Belmont College in Nashville, TN. In Nashville she met John K. Walker, Jr., a student at Vanderbilt, and they were married on July 20, 1951. John had enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and was stationed at Wichita Falls, Texas. He was transferred to Oakland, CA in 1952, while she stayed in Pine Bluff, Arkansas to deliver her first child, Jack, in July, 1952. She flew to join him in Oakland with her newborn son only ten days after giving birth. After leaving the Air Force in 1953, they lived a short time in Nashville and in Memphis before moving to Metairie (New Orleans), LA. Her second child, Ginger, was also born in Pine Bluff in October, 1955. In 1960 they moved to Jackson to start a new business, an offshoot of the Walker family's moving and storage business. Nancy and John were founding members of Covenant Presbyterian Church and devoted most of her philanthropic efforts through the church. She taught Sunday School, was an officer and member of the Presbyterian Women's Circle, Flower Committee and the Three M's Club.
Nancy and John were excellent contract bridge players and formed bridge clubs both in Metairie and Jackson. Though they stopped formally playing bridge in the 1980's these groups and the church formed the basis of their social circle throughout their lives in Jackson and Metairie. Avid travelers, they cruised the Nile, Yangtze and Rhine Rivers, and visited five continents.
Nancy was preceded in her death by her parents, Mr. & Mrs. J. C. McClellan. She survived by her husband of sixty-eight years, John Knox Walker, Jr., son John K. (Jack) Walker, III and his wife Vickie, daughter Virginia (Ginger) McClellan Riley and husband Larry, brother Bill T. McClellan and wife Mary , brother-in-law Dr. James Leslie Walker and wife Mary Jo, five step grand-children and five step great-grandchildren and eleven nieces and nephews.
The family is greatly appreciative of the care she received during the last few months including Hospice Ministries, Covenant Caregivers, and Brittany Hughes and Shirley Hughes.
Memorial gifts in honor of Nancy may be made to Covenant Presbyterian Church in Jackson, MS, the Palmer Home for Children in Columbus, MS, or French Camp Academy, French Camp, MS.