Wally Barber
PEORIA – Wally Barber, 91 years old, was born Walter William Barber to Clifford and Thelma Barber, in Chicago, Illinois in 1932. He met the love of his life, Betty Jean Yerkes, while attending a science class at Wright Jr. College. They married in 1952 and have been married for over 70 years. They had six children, 4 boys and 2 girls. Pat-deceased-Stephanie, Roseville, MN Lynn Torgerson-Robert, Glendale, AZ, Thomas-Glendale, AZ, Elizabeth Stewart-Glendale, AZ, Timothy-deceased and Karl-Laura, Crystal Lake, Illinois. He is grandfather to Roberta , April, Shaun, Ben, Jaime, Amy, Kayla, Kyle, Adam, and Emmalee and a great grandfather to 12.
He was a medic in the Navy during the Korean Conflict. Even though he was in the Navy he worked with the Marines as a corpsman. He served on the ship USS Saipan CVL-48 and traveled around the world.
His three main jobs where being a high school Science teacher and coach (wrestling, football, and basketball), for 13 years. A police officer in South Barrington for 12 years, and teaching martial arts and weight training at Northern Illinois University in Dekalb. He was an seventh degree black belt in Judo, a black belt in Karate and a black belt in Jujitsu. He competed in many tournaments and many national championships. In 1961 Wally helped implement the USJA (https://www.usja.net/about/ourhistory). He used humor in everything he did. Everywhere he went, he met people who knew him. He went to Japan in 1977 to practice martial arts at the Kodokan Judo Institute. He spoke fluent Japanese and made a point to find people who spoke Japanese who he could practice his Japanese with them. After hip replacements, he was unable to work out in judo or karate so he began working out in Kendo, (Japanese sword fighting) where he excelled. In 2009 Wally was inducted into The Martial Arts Hall of Fame for Golden Lifetime Achievement (https://www.mastershalloffame.org/ShowContacts.html).
Later he became an avid table tennis player with many tournament victories and had placed in the Las Vegas Nationals.
Wally always said how fortunate he was to have three loves of his life: first his wife and family, second was all the martial arts he was able to do and third all the jobs he had that he loved. Please no flowers, as he would say they were “just colored weeds”.
At Wally’s request if he had any positive impact on you, please respond with comments or a letter to sgtwb@aol.com.