Daughter of Josiah Lewis Walters and Nancy Emmarine "Emma" Foster. Vada never married although she was supposedly engaged once, but her fiance got cold feet and left her. Whether this is true or not, I do not know since she passed away before I was born. Vada once worked at a cookie factory in Des Moines, Iowa. When her sister Myrtle passed away, her husband, Earl Smith, dumped the children on Vada and her mother, Emma. Vada tried to raise the children but wasn't able to keep them from eventually going to an orphange.
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Recently, I received a letter from an anonymous contributor. This story seems familiar to me and I would like to share it. It seems that Vada was simply a wonderful lady.

"Great-Aunt Vada was a true jewel of a lady. There is no other way to say it. She was my "Aunt Bea" during my pre-school (1953 - 1955) years and I truly valued our time together. I remember countless afternoons in her small apartment lying on her living room floor, the two of us playing store; our money made from the round, waxed, hard-paper tops she saved from empty milk bottles. She taught me how to make change. Well, bless her heart, she did try. I remember her cooking lunch or supper or both and always there was too much for the two of us to eat. I remember our long walks on warm summer evenings, about the time the sun poked sideways through the trees, its dimming light sparkling on us through leaves. Our evening walks were a favorite with me. I think Aunt Vada knew that. Off we would go, across the porch and down the steps. Aunt Vada always with her hair done up in a bun, a print dress that ended closer to her ankles than her knees, heavy black shoes with thick heels (for the longest time I thought of them as "grandma shoes"), and a young boy in tow. She always found the best things to talk about during our walks. Interesting things and curious things alike. Like the cicada humming at us from high up in the trees, how the lengthening evening shade felt cool on our skin, counting birds gathering on a "wire", looking up and down the train tracks before crossing to the other side, the stories of a young girl in Kentucky many years past, pretending to be lost so I could save the day by finding our way "home" again. Not idle chatter to a young boy, but the kind of talk you feel going on inside yourself. Maybe our evening walks weren't miles long, but they seemed to go clear to the end of my imagination. I think she knew that too.

I still miss her."