Walter Herbert Dickey

Dickey, Walter H. of Port Orange, FL, formerly of DeBary, age 89, passed away on February 1, 2018 at Florida Hospital, Memorial Medical Center. He was born in the family farmhouse in Washington County, MO on January 1, 1929 to the late Dewey and Rollie Dickey. He was the beloved husband for 68 years to Wilma J. Dickey. He graduated from Soldan High School in St. Louis, MO in 1946 and at 17 joined the Navy Seabees, serving 18 months in the Philippines at the end of World War II.

Walter and Wilma were high school sweethearts and married in 1949. He is also survived by a daughter Diane Owsley (Jerry), Daytona Beach Shores; and son Kirk W. Dickey, Port Orange; grandchildren Justin P. Baxter (Meghan) of Wichita, KS, Ryan W. Dickey of Longwood and Michelle Peckham (John) of Wichita, three great-grandchildren Jaden, Jace and Jenna Peckham of Wichita; a sister Linda Hale Slidell, LA, and a niece Christi Sutherland, Daytona Beach.

Walter returned from active duty in 1948 and worked in the jewelry industry, before being recalled to the Navy in 1951. He served another 14 months during the Korean War, including time in the Aleutian Islands. He returned to the jewelry business, operating his own store for five more years. While working at his store he studied business at St. Louis University, MO, graduating in 1957.

In 1958 he accepted a position with IBM Service Bureau Corporation, and moved his family to Fairway, KS, a suburb of Kansas City, MO. After nine years at SBC, he joined Mercantile Bank in Kansas City, serving for 11 years as vice president and computer manager. He was a consummate handyman and upon retirement kept busy with his apartment house investments, buying, renovating and selling apartment buildings. At one time he owned over 70 rental units. When Wilma retired in 1993 they bought a condominium in Daytona Beach Shores and were snowbirds until they built their DeBary home in 1999.

One of Walter’s proudest and most satisfying accomplishments was the reunion 45 years later of his 1946 Seabee class of recruits. Before the internet, he located, by writing hundreds of letters, and making dozens of phone calls, the 23 members of his telephone training class whom he’d first met in Port Hueneme, California. Their first meeting was in 1991 at the Dickey home in Kansas. Fourteen came, with their wives, for a weekend of fun and tender reminiscences. In the years following the group met biannually at members’ home cities around the United States. The last reunion was held in Nashville in 2009 with five surviving members. With Walter’s passing, only 3 remain.

He was a life member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Post 3282, Port Orange, FL, and former member of Old Mission United Methodist Church and Village Presbyterian Church, both in the Kansas City suburbs.

Walter was beloved by his wife Wilma, and his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and niece as well as by his dear friends.

Visitation, service and interment at 10:00am Wednesday, Feb. 7 at Baldwin-Fairchild Oaklawn Chapel in Sanford, FL. At noon a luncheon will be served at the funeral home.