Walter Louis Proske, 1916–1983

Walter Louis Proske, son of Harold Valentine and Ivy Hollister Duncan Proske, was born 2 October 1916 at 4182A Neosho Street in St. Louis, Missouri. A few years later, the family moved to Affton, a St. Louis suburb. Walter ate oatmeal three times a day during the Great Depression. He attended Bayless Elementary School and graduated from Bayless High School in 1933. Like his father and uncle, he became an electrician. With his uncle, Clarence Walter Proske, he wired the Oakland House in Affton for electricity. Later, with his father and many other electricians, he helped build the Meramec Power Plant in south St. Louis County. He worked for both the Schaeffer and Sachs Electric companies, then for the Emerson-Comstock Engineering Company.

Walter married Wanda Kelley when he was twenty-three years old. They had one child, Judith Helen. In 1944, Walter entered the United States Navy and was aboard the USS Tercel, a minesweeper, for five months and seven days. He served as the radio operator/radar electronics technician and was honorably discharged from the Navy in 1946, having served twenty-two months. Not long after he returned home, his wife divorced him.

In 1954, Walter was aboard a train in Oklahoma when a young woman got on. The only open seat was next to him. She took it and after dating for a few years, they were married in June of 1956. They had a house built in Arnold, Missouri, and to them was born one daughter, Jana.

In June 1957, Walter graduated from Washington University with a B.S. in education. In June 1961, he received a Master’s degree from Washington University in industrial education. From 1954 to 1972, he taught first at O’Fallon Technical School in the St. Louis Public School system, then at the I.B.E.W. Electrical Industrial Training Center in the Apprenticeship Training Program. From 1974 to 1982, he taught in the M.D.T.A. Welding Program at Jefferson College in Hillsboro, Missouri.

Walter was a man of many interests. He learned to play the violin as a boy and later studied cello with two St. Louis Symphony cellists. He played cello for offertories, sang in the choir, and also sang solos at his church. He planted a one-third-acre vegetable garden for many years; he was not going to eat oatmeal three times a day ever again. He also planted flowers. He was an avid photographer and built a darkroom in his garage. He kept a beehive in the backyard, set up a target for practice, and tinkered with old cars. He also enjoyed model trains.

Walter was affable and had a good sense of humor. His Christian faith was important to him. He was baptized at St. John’s Lutheran Church on Morganford, went to a Methodist Sunday School as a toddler, attended Gardenville Mission (Presbyterian) in Affton, and became a Baptist sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s. He retired in 1982. On 16 August 1983, he suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage and died the next day. He is buried in Lakewood Park Cemetery in Affton.

Jana Proske Brazeal
October 2024

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