Event
Book Talk: A Conversation with Author William S. Walker
Join us for this special book talk in honor of the end of World War II!
Event Date
Sat., August 16 | 10 - 11:30 a.m.
Join us in commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II with a talk and video presentation from author William S. Walker about his book published by USC Press on the discovery of the lost letters from a fallen soldier in the Battle of the Bulge.
Dearest Mama: The Lost Letters of a Fallen Soldier and the Stories of Those He Left Behind began with a cache of letters that led to a journey of discovery, revealing the long and lasting consequences of war.
William S. Walker never knew his uncle, Fletcher "Bud" Blanton. Blanton had been killed fighting in Europe during World War II before Walker was born. Walker had heard stories about Bud, but for most of his life his uncle had existed only as a faded memory. That path changed when Walker opened a dusty cabinet forgotten in his garage attic and found a paper sack and a note in his father's handwriting that read, "Go through before you throw away." The bag was filled with family photos, correspondence, and a collection of letters and postcards that his uncle Bud had written to his family during his time on the frontline as a US Army infantryman in Europe. The first letter he pulled from the bag opened with the line, "Dearest Mama." Walker's Dearest Mama is Bud Blanton's story. More than that it is a deeply personal family chronicle that resonates for all those left behind when servicemembers do not return home from combat.
Books will be available for purchase. Light refreshments will be provided.
This program is free to the public. Online RSVPs are encouraged by emailing publicprograms@scmuseum.org.
About William S. Walker
William S. Walker is a South Carolina-born author with a lifelong interest in the state’s Pee Dee region. Walker, from Nichols in Marion County, worked as a reporter and editor in the United States and Europe for more than four decades and has written and edited for newspapers on assignments in over 50 countries. He began a 28-year career with the newspaper Stars and Stripes at Darmstadt, Germany, as a reporter in 1973 and was the newspaper’s worldwide Executive Editor when he retired. Before joining Stars and Stripes Walker worked at daily newspapers in South Carolina and as a news editor for the Associated Press. He is a graduate of Clemson University, the University of South Carolina and Ruprecht-Karls-Universität in Heidelberg, Germany, where he earned a Ph.D. in East European History. His 2010 book, German and Bosnian Voices in a Time of Crisis, told the story of Bosnian refugees in Germany from 1992-2002. His books include Down the Little Pee Dee—Paddling South Carolina’s Legendary Blackwater River (2015), Alaska Highway Flight Log (2017) and The Farmer and the Dolphin—How a WWII Navy Vet and a Country Lawyer Whipped the U.S. Government in court (2018). His latest book published by the University of South Carolina Press in December 2024 is Dearest Mama, The Lost Letters of a Fallen Soldier and the Stories of Those He Left Behind. The book tells the story of the newly discovered wartime letters of his uncle killed in WWII in Germany. Walker is a U.S. Army veteran and is commander of American Legion Post 82 in Nichols, S.C. He is still an active journalist, writing nationally for an aviation publication. As a commercial pilot he also flies for the South Carolina Wing of the Civil Air Patrol and has an airport on his farm in Lower Marion County.
