As the birds chirped out their message of spring in the peaceful little town of Trimble, Tennessee, there came the cry of another who was destined to point hundreds to Christ. Thus, Clarence O'Neil Walker made his entrance into the home of John and Dixie Walker on May 29, 1890. He was the second child to be born into this Godly home. The Walker home was not a wealthy home but a Godly one.

      Mrs. Dixie Walker was never a well woman, but in spite of her afflictions she cared for the household and for the children which the Lord had graciously given them. John Walker was a loving father, whom each child honored, revered, and held in high esteem.

      Brother Walker tells of his family and childhood in the following words: "In my father's family there were fourteen children. The oldest of us was our half brother, Canby, who was the only child by my father's first marriage. Canby's mother died soon after he was born. This may not interest many of the readers of our paper, then again I felt you might be interested, so I am going to give you the names of my brothers and sisters.

      First, a little girl was born and lived just a few months. My mother named her Bessie Lee. Then I came along and she gave me the name — Clarence. Kay was born twenty-one months later. After Kay was a little boy named Lee, who died the day he was born. My sister Viola was next. She was the one who stayed with mother until the Savior took her to her heavenly home. Then my brother Dell was born, followed by a little girl named Cleona, who lived about a year; then my sister Johnnie, who is now Mrs. Howard Davis. After Johnnie was Walter, my preacher brother. Mrs. Paul Brown, whose full name is Louisa Ritter, named after our mother's mother, but commonly called Lula, is next to Walter. The three youngest were Sally, Jewell, and last, a little girl who lived three months, named Kate.

      When I was a boy about 10 years old my mother had a most serious illness from which she never recovered fully. I can remember so distinctly the difference which came into her life after this illness — before she always seemed so young and a dynamo of energy, enthusiasm and power. Afterward she seemed to be much older and weary. My father nursed her and waited upon her as if she were a baby. One of the most beautiful pictures to me is the tenderness and love that I saw manifested by him for my mother. She was only a girl in her teens when they ran away from home and married. There never seemed to be a burden too heavy for him to carry, nor anything too hard for him to do if it brought pleasure and happiness to her. He was a man of prayer and a man of faith. He loved the Lord and the Church of the living God."

      The family of John Walker moved from Trimble, Tennessee, to Louisville, Kentucky, when Clarence was only 15 months old and he remained there until he was seventeen years of age, when he left for William Jewell College at Liberty, Missouri. Brother Walker writes of his father's occupation at Louisville in the following manner: "My father worked at Mengel's for nearly forty years and my early joy there was helping to make boxes. Once they wanted me to work on whiskey boxes. I refused, and thought surely my boss, Mr. Charlie Ross, a great friend of my father's, would fire me, but he didn't."

      Their first residence in Louisville was on Eleventh Street, and they remained there until he was nine at which time they moved to Twelfth Street. They remained there until their father built a house at Fifteenth and Wilson. It was at this time that John and Dixie helped to organize the Ormsby Avenue Baptist Church. It was here that Clarence later found the Lord, served as janitor, later deacon and then surrendered to preach. The Walker family could always be expected to be at the Ormsby Avenue Baptist Church whenever the doors were opened unless illness intervened.