Couple’s Decision: Family Worth More Than Money

ERMA – “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?”
Clint and Janette Walker have an answer to that question posed by Jesus Christ – nothing.
The Walkers are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints – commonly known as the Mormons. The Herald sat down with them in their home to talk about how their faith impacts their lives.
Clint Walker was born in Cape May County and has lived here for most of his life. He and his family were converts to the faith. When he was 5, two of those young men in white shirts and ties, familiar on highways and byways throughout the world, knocked on his parents’ door and that’s how it began for him.
Janette Walker grew up in a family that can trace its Mormon roots back six generations to the first converts from England and Wales sent out by Brigham Young. She grew up in northern Michigan, where her father, a college professor, established the first Latter Day Saints chapel in the area.
The church is not only in her blood but every fiber of her being. When retelling the story of her ancestor, a scout named Levi Savage, and his guiding the group of saints (as the Mormons refer to each other) over the mountains and through the deserts, the admiration and respect is evident in her voice.
Asked the couple, married for 34 years, how they met, they answered the way couples together for a long time do, finishing each other’s sentences, interrupting to clarify a small detail and all with obvious love.
Clint was a missionary in Scotland. All young Latter Day Saints men do a two-year stint in the service of the church wherever they are sent and pay for it themselves. “We met through a mutual friend who was corresponding with Janette. When he returned to the United States I started to write to her,” Clint said.
Letters were followed up with phone calls for several months and finally a meeting was arranged. Janette, with her father, came to visit Clint in New Jersey.
A month after their first date they were married. “I couldn’t turn down her proposal,” Clint chortled. It was a good decision.
Most of Clint’s working life has been spent as a commercial fisherman, the most dangerous job in the nation, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. A big, physically fit man, it is not hard to imagine him doing the tasks required of such labor intensive work. But it is his strength of character that shines through when talking to him.
Mormons do not drink alcohol or stimulants such as coffee, tea or caffeinated drinks, or curse or use foul language. They also eschew pornography and gratuitously violent entertainment and they strive to be of help to their fellow human beings – saints or not.
Janette, a college graduate who works in education, spent most of her working life as a “Mom and full-time homemaker,” which she calls her favorite job, to the couple’s’ five grown children. “We also have nine grandchildren. Four of our kids are married and all but one live outside of New Jersey,” she states.
All people suffer loss and tragedy during their lives. How they handle it defines who they are.
Clint experienced a profound loss as a teenager living in Arkansas with his family. They had moved there from the Garden State so his father could ranch. One day after Clint and his father had surveyed the cattle in the small plane his father owned, Clint’s best friend stopped over and Clint’s father offered to take him for a short ride in the two seater.
As Clint stood on the ground he watched in horror as the small engine sputtered and the plane dropped from the sky crashing into the side of a hill. His best friend and 42-year-old father were dead. “I was devastated,” he whispered, emotion cracking his voice. 
He fled into the woods where he stayed for several months sorting out the deep emotions that accompanied the primal loss. He retreated to figure out his relationship with God, his family, his church and himself.
“My Dad was my role model and my best friend. His death left a hole only God could fill,” Janette, his wife, seeing the emotion filling in her husband interjected. “The relationship with our Savior Jesus Christ is everything. The Savior is my Redeemer, my Advocate. It is His example that teaches us how to serve others. He was obedient to His Father’s commands and He asks us to do the same. I am so grateful for His atoning sacrifice. He knows how to help us and our family. The Savior and Heavenly Father never leave us.”
The Walkers then spoke of the priorities in their lives. “I love to work. My family has been fishing here since 1922,”Clint said.
But being out on the boat sometimes requires long absences from home and family. Janette was carrying the heavy domestic load for long stretches of time.
“In my early 30s I was faced with a decision, make more money or be home to help raise my children.” Clint found his answer in a quote from the prophet Joshua. “Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.”
Clint, like Joshua chose God and his family. He stays ashore working for Lund’s Fisheries and had many satisfying years helping to raise his children and being a present husband to his wife as well as an active church member.
“All things fade in importance to this,” he says, adding, “No other success can compensate for failure in the home.” Janette echoes her husband’s statements. “Our children and our faith in God, that is our treasure, our riches.”
Some people would think that this life of discipline, discipleship and dedication to others would be boring drudgery but they never met the Walkers who radiate tranquility and joy and a welcoming spirit to each other and anyone fortunate enough to encounter them. 
ED. NOTE: Faith and religion are important facets in the Cape May County community. The author plans to do stories on various aspects of religion and what impact it has on those who practice it. She encourages those with ideas on subjects to email her at hmccaffrey@cmcherald.com for consideration.