The Tragic Breakup of the Walters Family
Written by Justin D. Lamb
This photograph of the courthouse was taken in 1934, the same year the Walters family was tragically split up by the County Judge on Main Street in Benton. (Courthouse Photograph Collection)
On June 6, 1934, fourteen-year old Ben Walters, barefoot and in bib-overalls, was being restrained in the grip of a deputy sheriff as he helplessly watched his family being torn apart on the Benton court square. In front of a small crowd of hecklers and curious spectators, Walters’ mother was forcefully thrown into a car and whisked away down the dusty Main Street in route to a mental hospital in Hopkinsville. Immediately after, Ben and his eight siblings were being loaded into a separate car in route to an orphanage in Louisville. “We can’t fit all of these kids into this one car,” the Sheriff said to the County Clerk who was holding the small six month old baby whom he had ripped from Eula Walter’s nursing breast. “What are we going to do with them?”
So it was decided by the County Judge that the five younger siblings were to be taken to the Louisville orphanage and the four remaining children, including Ben, would remain in Marshall County with their father who was locked up in the jail in the basement of the courthouse. It would be 52 years before the Walters family would all be together again.
It is almost hard to imagine that a saga like this ever happened in Marshall County, but it did 82 years ago right on Main Street Benton. But the question has always remained why? Why was a family who had never done anything to harm anyone simply torn apart in front of a heckling crowd on court square?
The Walters family was a considerably poor family that lived just outside of Hardin near Union Hill. They were regular attenders of the local church where Ben Walter’s father, George Walters, was often called to preach. The Great Depression had hit the family hard and George Walters was forced to look for work in surrounding counties while his wife, Eula, stayed behind to manage the farm and care for their nine children. Eula, however, suffered from mild schizophrenia which carried a stigma and was often misunderstood at the time. “Mama had her quirks,” Ben Walters recalled years later in his 1991 History of the Walters Family. “She would laugh when nothing funny had been said, and she’d say foolish things. She also felt that inanimate objects had a strange influence on her,” Walters recalled. “But her symptoms were mild and transitory and she was never a danger to herself or anyone else,” Walters said. “But her condition was an embarrassment to some of her family members especially one of her brothers who took it upon himself to do something about it.”
So in the summer of 1934, Eula’s brother, who was very good friends with the County Judge at the time, contacted him about Eula’s condition. “She’s an embarrassment. Don’t forget who put you in this office,” Eula’s brother said to the County Judge. “I got votes for you and I sure can get votes against you.” Without any examination by a doctor, the ‘situation’ was soon settled in a backroom deal in the County Judge’s office as the Judge agreed to commit Eula Walters in the ‘insane asylum’ in Hopkinsville. The order was written declaring Eula ‘permanently and incurably insane’, signed, and given to the sheriff who along with Eula’s brother went to the Walters’ farm outside to detain Eula Walters.
“Well, poor ole George, what is he going to do with all of them nine young’uns?” was the question raised by the County Judge as he chewed on a chaw of tobacco and spit into the spittoon of the main hall of the courthouse. It was decided to take the five younger children, ranging from 6 months old to 13 years, to an orphanage in Louisville.
When George Walters, who was out looking for work, arrived home, he was soon informed by a neighbor of his wife’s arrest and the removal of his children. George quickly made his way to the courthouse in Benton and demanded that wife and children be returned. “What has she done to cause this?” George Walters kept asking. “This is what is best for everybody,” the Judge kept answering. “I’d just about kill a feller before I’d let ‘em take my young’uns,” said George Walters.
“Well, that sounds like a threat,” said the County Judge. “Lock him up!” the Judge ordered the sheriff as George Walters was taken into custody and thrown in the county jail.
The following day, George Walters was released from jail and he and his four remaining children returned home to the family farm, but life was never the same again. Finally in January 1935, the family sold a cow, a few hogs, and a couple of chickens in order to finance a ride to Louisville in hopes of reuniting the family. “But we went out to the orphanage and the children were gone. They’d simply been given away.” Ben Walters recalled. “From that point on Dad was never right again and Momma was withdrawn in her own world. We would often visit her in the hospital and we would take her on visits away from the hospital. On these visits, I remember she would often stop cars in the street and ask, ‘Have you seen my children?’” Eula Walters died in Western State Hospital in 1957.
This tragic story has a somewhat happy ending. After years of detective work, Ben Walters was able to track down all of his siblings. In June 1983, Ben Walters and all of his brothers and sisters, with the exception of his youngest brother Billy, were reunited at a reunion at Kentucky Dam Village. Three years later, Billy was finally found living in Texas as Arch Hillman, a successful businessman. Billy, who was 6 months old at the time of the breakup of his family, had been adopted by a couple in Louisville and was raised in Texas. After 52 years, the family was finally together again after corrupt politics unjustly tore them apart on the Benton court square.
Sources:
“Walters Siblings Together After 52 Years”; Tribune-Courier, July 2, 1986
“The Walters Family of Marshall County, Kentucky” by Ben Walters; 1991
“Family Reunion: One Man’s Long, Hard Quest: Siblings Separated 52 Years Ago”; Los Angeles Times; July 2, 1986