JACKIE LEE (JACK) WALTON,
of Maumelle, went to be with his Lord on April 9, 2021. He was born in Shreveport, La., to the late John Fletcher (Jack) and Earla Stegall Walton. His parents were originally from Clarksville.
He graduated from Central High School in 1957 and joined the Navy. He spent most of his Navy years in Rhode Island, where he met his future wife, the former Kathleen Elizabeth Gavitt.
They married February 9, 1963, in Westerly, R.I., and moved immediately to Little Rock, where he worked with his father at Town and Country Exxon. After his father retired, Jack managed the service station and spent a total of 28 years there. Jack was known for his honesty and integrity and tried to instill that in his children. After he left the station, he worked for several years at Labcorp and retired from there.
Jack was a member of Immanuel Baptist Church for many years and loved teaching the three-year-old toddlers in Sunday School. He later joined Fellowship Bible Church and was very active there. He joined Christ Community Church in October 2015 and loved working on the Parking Team.
He loved the outdoors and spent most of his waking hours puttering around his 20 acres in Ferndale. He loved watching and feeding the birds and deer and raising vegetables in his raised beds. When pancreatic cancer struck him in October 2018, he was forced to cut back on the things he loved. He and his wife decided it was time to move to a smaller place, so they moved to Maumelle in May of 2020.
Jack and his wife, Kathy, had a love for veterans and every Saturday they visited the veterans at the Arkansas Veterans Home on Charles Bussey Avenue in Little Rock. They visited there for about nine years until it closed in 2012. During the last five years at the old home, they returned on Sunday mornings in their Suburban and took five or six veterans to Fellowship Bible Church. When the new veterans complex opened in 2015, they returned to their weekly Saturday visits until the pandemic forced them to stop.
In 2020, he and his wife were named Arkansas Volunteers of the Year for the Arkansas Health Care Association (AHCA) and Arkansas Assisted Living Association (AALA). He was delighted and very honored when Craig O’Neill chose them as Co-Arkansans of the Day on Channel 11. The Arkansas Democrat also did a High Profiles article on their volunteer work.
Jack was preceded in death by his grandsons, Taylor Walton, Matthew Walton and Brandon Sayger. He is survived by his wife of 58 years, Kathy; four children, Karen Harrison, Stephen Walton (Shannon), Jeffrey Walton (Deborah), and Susan Hawkins (Chip); 12 grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren. He was so proud of his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and loved telling others about them. He is also survived by his sister-in-law, Betty Jean Page (Art) and his brother-in-law, William S. Gavitt, Jr. (Laurie) and their families.
The family would like to thank Baptist Hospice for their wonderful care during the last months of Jack’s life. Each and every person who cared for him did so with love and compassion.
Funeral services will be held Friday, April 16 at 11 a.m., preceded by visitation beginning at 10:00, at Smith Little Rock Funeral Home, 8801 Knoedl Ct., Little Rock, (501) 224-2200. Memorials may be made to Christ Community Church, 16603 Cantrell Rd., Suite 1, Little Rock, Ark. 72223, or the Immanuel Baptist Church Nursery Fund, 501 N. Shackelford Rd., Little Rock, Ark. 72211. Jack’s online guestbook may be signed at www.smithfamilycares.com.