Virginia Walker

Virginia was born in Moab, Utah, home of her maternal grandparents, on August 31, 1942, to the late Arthur J. Gilmore and the late Cecil Taylor Gilmore. She was married in 1968 to the late John W. (Jack) Walker, a retired research archaeologist with the National Park Service. The couple moved to Tallahassee in 1972.

Virginia graduated from George Mason High School in Falls Church, Virginia, in 1960. In 1964 she received a B.A. from Longwood College, Farmville, Virginia, and in 1965 she received a Masters of Education from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. She then taught speech pathology at Bloomsburg State College in Pennsylvania, and worked at the Central Georgia Speech and Hearing Center in Macon, Georgia. After moving to Florida, she began working towards her doctoral degree at Florida State University while holding various teaching and clinical positions in the Department of Communication Science & Disorders. She received her Ph. D. in 1979 and worked as a Professor in that Department at FSU until retirement in 2005.

While at FSU, Virginia was appointed by the Governor as Member of the Florida Board of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology in the State’s Division of Medical Quality Assurance. She remained in that position well into her retirement.

As a breast cancer survivor, Virginia was very active with “Reach to Recovery,” an American Cancer Society program where volunteer survivors offer support and information to cancer patients. She was also an active member of Taoist Tai Chi Society in Tallahassee for many years.

Virginia shared her husband’s passion for gardening and birding, as well as for the many dogs they adopted over the years.

Virginia leaves behind two sisters, Lorena Leslie Vandivere of Springfield, Virginia, and Joan G. Stewart, of Tallahassee.

A visitation will be held at 2:00 PM on Sunday, January 26, 2025, at Culley’s Meadowwood Funeral Home, 700 Timberlane Road, Tallahassee. A reception will follow at the funeral home at 3:00 PM.

She will be interred next to her loving husband Jack in North Carolina.