Irma Cecilia Stith Walker, retired factory worker

Irma Cecilia Stith Walker, a retired Doxsee Foods worker and health care aide, died in her sleep March 8 at her home in Northeast Baltimore. She was 82.

Born in Baltimore and raised in Sugar Hill near Druid Hill Park, she was the daughter of Russell Stith, an engineer, and his wife, Elizabeth Hicks, a housewife. She was preceded in death by two brothers and four sisters. She attended Frederick Douglass High School and received her GED diploma at age 57.

In 1956 she married Albert Dailey Jr., a jazz pianist who studied at the Peabody Conservatory and Morgan State University, performed at the Royal Theater and Carnegie Hall, and played live and recorded with jazz masters. He died in 1984.

In 1966 she joined Doxsee Foods in Rosedale as a factory worker who performed machine operator duties related to making mayonnaise, mustard, salad dressing and extracts.

She married the Rev. Riley Walker Jr., a retired Navy veteran and General Services Administration engineer in Washington, D.C. He was the pastor of a Westminster congregation. He died in 2011.

She was later an in-home health aide for the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene until she retired in 1998.

She was a childhood member of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Old Goucher. She later became an usher at New Pleasant Grove Missionary Baptist Church in the Four by Four neighborhood near Belair-Edison. She enjoyed reading, singing hymns and sharing the word of God.

“Her family was her life. We were always together,” said her daughter, Anditria Dailey. “Barbecuing in the backyard was her first love, but she also loved to cook, visit with family and friends, and travel on family vacations.”

Survivors include a son, Albert Dailey III; another daughter, Danette Dailey Colvin; one brother, John Emory Stith; one double cousin, Ardelia Lokeman; five grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; and many other family members. The family lives in the Baltimore area.

Services were held March 15 at the Howell Funeral Home’s East Baltimore location.