Walter J. Dickinson (Lebanon)'s Obituary
Walter James Dickinson, 89, the husband of Marian Jane Myers Dickinson and the father of Robert and Christine Dickinson, died early in the morning of March 19th, 2018. He leaves behind one remaining brother, Don, now the last of William Edward and Cora Ellen Doublin Dickinson’s eleven children: besides Walter and Don, these were Luther Dickinson, Edith Basnett, Leslie Dickinson, Gladys Moore, Charles Dickinson, Edna Sumner, Johnny Dickinson, Louise Rehard, and Marjorie Phife.
Walter’s extended family of Dickinsons, Doublins and many others includes nieces, nephews and cousins in both Missouri and Southern California, where a number of the siblings and their mother Cora settled in the postwar era.
After Walter’s military service as a physician’s assistant in the Air Force during the Korean War, he became a barber, and in 1958 married Marian, a teacher. Soon he opened his own barber shops in San Diego.
Besides Walter, his siblings Don, Louise and Marjorie also married and started families in San Diego as well, and Cora was happily surrounded first by grandchildren, and then great grandchildren. Johnny, meanwhile, lovingly cared for his mother until she passed away at 98.
All the while, however, the family retained its strong connection to Missouri, and visited back and forth constantly.
In the mid-1960s, after the birth of their son Robert, Walter sold his barber shops, and the family built a hill-top house on Marian’s olive ranch in then-remote Jamul (pronounced “ha-mool”), to the southeast of San Diego. He still continued to barber alongside his brother Johnny in an El Cajon barbershop. Even though the family had moved to Jamul, they remained active in the First Baptist Church of San Diego, where they both sang in the choir, and, later, at North Park Baptist Church.
As always, Walter remained a baseball enthusiast and, to the puzzlement of the rest of his family, an avid fan of the Kansas City Royals.
In the fall of 1970, a Santa Ana wind-driven firestorm burned down the family’s home on the ranch, but the family quickly began rebuilding. In 1971, Marian gave birth to Christine, and by 1973, the family once again lived on the ranch’s hill-top. Walter began attending the much closer Jamul Community Church in the 1990s, and Marian returned to teaching at a nearby college.
By the early 2000s, both Walter and Marian had retired, and in 2012, as their health declined, they left their home in Jamul for a senior retirement community in nearby La Mesa.
Even though Walter’s struggles with Alzheimer’s had begun much earlier, Marian’s own onset was much more swift, and while Marian had earlier cared for Walter, Walter then helped to care lovingly for Marian.
Walter was also able to celebrate his beloved Royals’ success in the 2015 World Series with his nephew George.
Finally, however, Walter suffered a series of rapid declines, and passed away exactly five months shy of his 90th birthday.
Walter’s wife Marian, his family and friends celebrated his life with services in San Diego on March 27th.
Here in Lebanon, services will be held at Holman-Howe’s chapel Thursday, April 5th, at 2pm. This service will be preceded by a visitation at 1pm. Burial at New Home Cemetery in Falcon will follow the 2pm service.
· Holman-Howe Funeral Homes is located at 320 S. Adams Ave, Lebanon, MO 65536. Telephone: (417) 532-4061.
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