Walter Berg was born in Decatur, (Adams County) Indiana. Known as "Wally" to his family and friends, he grew up in Beardstown, Illinois where his father was a Lutheran minister. His family spoke German exclusively in their home, but when he started to school he was teased because he could not speak English. This created an incentive to learn English quickly. In later years, when his brothers and sisters would get together, they would reminisce about their early years by speaking in German again.

At the urging of his father, he studied for the ministry at the Concordia Lutheran seminary in Ft.Wayne, Indiana, entering that school at the age of 14 in 1903. It was in Ft. Wayne that he played semi-pro baseball for a time. A bout with rheumatic fever left him with deformed toes on one foot, ending any further baseball. He received high marks in school, but became disillusioned with the church and never completed those studies. He returned to Beardstown for a time working out of the family home. When the family left Beardstown in 1911 to move to North Carolina, he moved with them. He sold pictures and Bibles riding through the mountains on horseback, but this ended when he was almost lynched by a group of moonshiners who mistook him for a revenue agent. At the outbreak of the First World War in 1917, he enlisted in the army, but because of the slight deformity in his foot, he was quickly discharged. As a civilian he worked as an army paymaster in Philadelphia for the duration of the war.

He moved to Florida in 1919, first working as a guard in the phosphate mines at Ft. Pierce. He moved to Tampa in 1921 and became a bookkeeper for O'Berry and Hall Co., a wholesale grocery company. In 1924 he contracted tuberculosis and spent 9 months in bed being nursed back to health by his mother.

He built a home for himself, his mother and sister Madge in Seminole Heights (Tampa) in 1922 (shown above), a first for the family. He bought his first Ford car in 1923. Then, he took sick and spent six months in bed in 1924 and 1925 with a severe case of tuberculosis. At the beginning he was not given much of a chance to live, but his mother took over and with prayer and good nursing, brought him back to health.

It was at O'Berry and Hall that he met Clemmie Madelyn Croft. Clemmie was a clerk in the office. Walter was 41 and Clemmie was 32 when they were secretly married on 6 December 1930 in Sanford, Florida. He and Clemmie were compelled to secrecy because of a company rule prohibiting employment of a married couple. After a year of this secrecy, they decided to announce their marriage, then they both left O'Berry's and moved to Orlando. They bought a small grocery store there, living in an apartment above. It was there that their only son was born.

The Great Depression was at its worst in the early 1930s. The little grocery store failed, and the small family returned to Tampa, where Walter eventually got his old job back at O'Berry. He retired in 1952. When the interstate highway system took the family home on Frierson Avenue, he moved to Brandon, on the outskirts of Tampa, and built a new home in 1963.

Walter was the tallest of his family at 6 feet. He had a sharp mind, especially with numbers. He could add a column of five digit numbers in his head faster than his clerks could with an adding machine. He loved to play cards - bridge, pinochle, rummy - often challenging his mind by playing his hands as they were dealt, without rearranging the cards. He took those games seriously and always played to win.

His health failed in 1969, beginning with an operation to remove cataracts from his eyes. Required to lie still for days to allow his eyes to heal, his urinary function failed. The resulting prostate operation brought on infection, followed by a series of strokes. He died at the age of 80. He and Clemmie are buried in the Myrtle Hill Cemetery in Tampa in the Berg family plot.

Documents:
Death Certificate

Back to Walter's Tree

Back To Home Page