Henry Lane Walters, Jr.

Henry Lane Walters, Jr., went home to be with the Lord on November 18, 2019, at the age of 92, passing away quietly at the Kresge Rehabilitation Center in Chelsea, Michigan. The son of Henry L. Walters, Sr., and Helen Lane Walters, Henry was born on January 14, 1927, in De Berry, Texas. He grew up in Waskom, where he loved to hunt and fish, and in Houston, graduating from San Jacinto High School in 1945. Training as a radio gunner, Henry served in the U.S. Navy at the end of WWII. Henry returned to Houston and attended The Rice Institute, majoring in English. He acted in productions of The Rice Dramatics Club and co-wrote a play (with Clark Foster) entitled “Highly Impressionable,” which was performed in 1950 (admission 50 cents). At Rice, he met his future wife, Wanda Faye Stout, to whom he was married for sixty-eight years and with whom he had three children, Anne, Hal, and Helen. Henry accepted a job with Western Auto in 1951. Here he helped develop computer systems for inventory control and rose to management positions. His work took the family from Houston to New Orleans, to Meridian, Mississippi, back to Houston, and finally to Dallas.

In 1963, the family returned to Houston. Drawn to the vision of the Rev. T. Robert Ingram for St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, he began teaching math and English at St. Thomas’ Episcopal School (STES), where he became headmaster a year later. He credited the school’s success to its exceptional faculty, and he grew the student body from 200 to 700, adding a high school in the late 1960s. Henry nurtured an outstanding and rigorous classical curriculum founded on Christian values at STES and enriched it with his own teaching, including his inspired interpretation of Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess” and his command performances of the “Prologue” of Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” in Middle English. He used his voice in other ways as well, intoning the canticles in daily chapel services with monk-like purity and beauty. Over the years, Henry introduced excellent programs in sports, music, theater, and art, in addition to extra-curriculars that former students remember fondly, including Morse Code, boxing, photography and dark room developing, mock trial, and an after-school work crew. He helped the school’s signature Scottish Arts program become the internationally acclaimed program it is. Henry was an avid reader and an amateur photographer whose portraits of STES seniors, who posed patiently while he got the focus and lighting just right, appear in the school’s yearbooks. He spoke often of how much he loved the students, and many of them kept in touch with him long after they graduated. Retiring in 1999, Henry spent his later years serving on the the church vestry, lay reading at services, and exploring a new generation of computers. Wanda and he moved to Manchester, Michigan, in 2015 to be near family. Henry’s daughter-in-law Katherine Walters took loving care of him during his final years.

Besides his beloved wife Wanda, Henry is survived by his daughter Anne Robertson and husband Robby of Chicago, Illinois; his son Hal Walters and wife Katherine of Manchester, Michigan; his granddaughters Caroline Welling, Hannah Ramsey, Grace Cupp, and Jacqueline Robertson; his great-grandchildren Robert Ramsey, Esmei Welling, and Nathan Ramsey; and his sister Nancy Vogt of The Woodlands, Texas. His daughter Helen Dee Walters died in 1960. The family would like to thank Henry’s many compassionate care-givers in Houston and Manchester, and at the Glazier Commons of the Chelsea Retirement Community.

Visitation will take place at Earthman Bellaire Funeral Home, 4525 Bissonet, Bellaire, Texas, on Saturday, November 23, from 4 to 6 p.m. A funeral service will be held at St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, 4900 Jackwood, Houston, on Sunday, November 24, at 2 p.m., with burial afterward at Forest Park Westheimer Cemetery, 12800 Westheimer, followed by a reception.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the St. Thomas’ Episcopal School Capital Campaign, 4900 Jackwood, Houston, Texas, 77096.