John Douglas Walton

aka: “Buddy”, “Uncle Buds”, or simply “Bud”

John Douglas Walton was born into the loving family of Forrest and Dorothea (Craven) Walton on April 19, 1934 as their second child.

As would be repeated hundreds of times over, he nearly instantly made a friend upon his arrival in his sister, Mary Carol, a bond that would be kept for life. They were both raised in the idyllic small-town environment of 1940’s Kingsburg , where John logged what was likely thousands of miles on his bicycle, played in the band, and delivered the newspaper.

He shared his newspaper duties with his friend Ed Morgan, delivering the paper to the entire city while they were both still in grammar school. He would remain in regular contact with friends made there, such as Ed and Russel Anderson, for the remainder of his life; nearly eighty years. Kingsburg, and his family’s vineyard in nearby Selma, were the places where he developed an early fascination with tractors, cars, motorcycles, and anything mechanical at a very early age; an interest that would become the basis for his career as well as most of his hobbies.

The Walton family moved from the house they built in Kingsburg just a few years earlier, to a brand-new, three-bedroom home in Fresno’s Mayfair neighborhood in 1950.

John began attending Roosevelt High School, graduating from there in 1953. During his final year of high school, he split his time between Roosevelt and Fresno City College, where he took vocational classes such as automotive repair, body and fender, and welding. Working on cars and good times were the initial bond between John and Cliff Nugent, during this period of his life. Together they would buy, sell, repair, customize, and drag race just about anything with wheels.

It was as a passenger, street-racing one night on H Street in Cliff’s hot rod 1959 El Camino, that would end up putting John in the hospital with compressed vertebrae. Nearly 65 years later, Cliff still points out though, that 1) they won the race and 2) he did save John’s life by driving him to the hospital!

About the same time he got out of school, he became an uncle when his sister Carol gave birth to her first daughter, Linda. This would be repeated two more times with the birth of Cheryl, and finally, Cindee a few years later. He was an uncle for nearly 20 years before becoming a father, and “Uncle Buds”, as they called him, was always thrilled to see his young nieces. He visited them in several locations in California as they grew, each time bringing something along with him: gifts, a ride in a convertible, a trip to the record store, good advice, or simply a good pair of ears to listen with. Much later in life when his nieces had families of their own, he would join them on vacations; sharing cruises, attending out-of-state weddings, and joining their annual post-Christmas trip to Monterey.

John was a proud veteran of the United States Army, serving nearly two years in Korea as part of a peace-keeping force beginning in mid 1955. While stationed there, he served in the “motor pool” supporting a fleet of trucks, tanks, Jeeps, and other mechanized equipment. Whenever he recalled his time in Korea, two themes were always present: mud and the bitterly cold weather. He was discharged a few months short of his two-year commitment, however he was unable to communicate this back home. The result? In May of 1957 his family was quite surprised and elated when he got off the bus on Cedar Avenue and came walking down Brentwood wearing his uniform and carrying his duffle bags….unannounced!

After first working in service stations and trailer manufacturing, John found his way into what would become a career in the then-emerging industry of electronic business machines. He first landed a job as technician for Dictaphone in the early 1960’s, working on the first generation of voice-transcription and data facsimile machines. After a relatively short stay there, he moved on to 3M Company, where he stayed for nearly 20 years, and then later to the C.A. Reding Company. Although working in various capacities of the service end of the industry took John to locations from San Francisco to Los Angeles and out as far east as Las Vegas, what he most enjoyed was traveling the backroads of the San Joaquin Valley meeting new people and seeing new things. He made his final career move into retirement in 1998, excelling at the tasks of tinkering, traveling, drinking coffee with friends, “honey-do’s”, gardening, volunteering, and grandparenting for the next 24 years.

John was a “project guy”, and there were countless projects along the way. Home remodels, new home construction (two of them in fact), swimming pool construction, rental property maintenance, woodworking, landscaping, boats, airplanes (with his good friend Don Cook), and cars…all were of keen interest to him. Whether it was his frugality or his desire to learn about these endeavors, he always tried to do as much of the work himself as he possibly could. His love of a “good project” (as he liked to call them) lives on in his son and his grandchildren.

John’s greatest, and most-lengthy, adventure began on September 25th, 1965 when a friend set him up on a blind date with a beautiful 24-year-old bookkeeper named Pat Liles from Clovis. Their very first date began with attending the motorcycle races held at the Tulare County Fair and ended with breakfast! Jess Liles, her father, was quoted the following morning as having said, “He’ll be back tomorrow unless the bridge is out.” Indeed, he did come back, and the two married on December 27, 1969. Their union would span nearly fifty-three years, and together they would weather the challenges of life and celebrate its good times…together…always together.

Their adventure would expand over the years; first with the birth of their only child, Tim, in March of 1972, again when Tim married Mariah in 1999, and then three more times with the birth of each of his grandchildren: Garrett, Riley, and Kendal.

Like many his age, life seemed to take on new purpose and focus with the addition of grandchildren. He just could not contain his excitement when his first-born grandchild came into the world late one September night in 2000, driving to the hospital in the middle of the night to meet his grandson. Later, “Grandpa John” leveraged the fact that only a couple miles separated his home from the home of his grandchildren, seeing them regularly throughout their young lives. He spent every birthday, holiday, vacation, and Sunday-night-dinner with his family of seven that he possibly could; these events seemingly able to, single handedly, provide him strength in his later years.

John lost his battle to cancer on October 4th ,2022 much the same way he had come into the world 88-1/2 years earlier; surrounded by the people who loved him the most. He leaves behind a legacy of humor, kindness, understanding, humility, and love in each of us who knew and loved him.

John is survived by his Spouse, PAT WALTON; his Son TIM WALTON; and his Daughter-in-law MARIAH WALTON; his Grandson GARRETT WALTON, his Granddaughter RILEY WALTON and his Granddaughter KENDAL WALTON.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.whitehurstsullivan.com for the WALTON family.