Group photograph: 'Jamie' (James Pickens Walker Sr.), fullback, Washington and Lee University varsity football team, 1901
Book 2, Page 46 ·1901–1903
Transcription
A single large pasted photograph mounted across the page, oriented sideways relative to the album.
In its proper orientation the print shows a Washington and Lee varsity football team posed for a portrait — roughly a dozen and a half young men in horizontally-striped jerseys and padded football trousers, arranged in two or three tiers on what appears to be a wooden grandstand or porch, with a manager or coach in dark suit at one side. The image is faded and somewhat overexposed.
Caption (handwritten in pencil along the right-hand margin of the album page, reading top-to-bottom when the page is oriented portrait):
Jamie — Pickens Walker — Full back varsity team — Washington & Lee Univ[ersity] 1901
1901 – 1903
AI Notes
An album page (lined notebook paper, three punched holes) with a single large team photograph pasted across it. The photograph is mounted sideways relative to the page; in its proper orientation it shows a varsity football team posed in two rows, wearing horizontally-striped jerseys and football trousers, with a manager or coach in dark suit at one side. The handwritten pencil caption running vertically along the right-hand margin of the page identifies both subject and team: ‘Jamie — Pickens Walker — Full back varsity team — Washington & Lee Univ. 1901 — 1901–1903.’ ‘Full back’ is the football position fullback. The subject is James Pickens Walker Sr., the compiler Amy FitzSimons’s future husband (his W&L football years 1901–03 predate their marriage, but Amy preserved his college photo in this album of family material). This same J.P. Walker Sr. is the recipient (‘Dad’) of the 1 February 1933 ODK-tap letters from his son James Pickens Walker Jr. preserved on this album’s pp130–131, written from W&L a generation later. James Pickens Walker Sr. was known in family correspondence as ‘Puck’; he died 19 Nov 1960 in Jacksonville, FL, and was buried at Philippi, Barbour County, West Virginia.
“Jamie” is James Pickens Walker Sr., who played fullback on the W&L varsity football team during the 1901–1903 seasons. He later married the compiler Amy Ann Perry FitzSimons (b. 4 Feb 1888, Charleston). His son James Pickens Walker Jr. (b. 5 Jan 1912) followed him to Washington and Lee a generation later — the 1933 ODK-tap letters on this album’s pp130–131 are from Jr. to “Dad” (Jamie/Puck Sr.) and report on a W&L swim-team trip. Washington and Lee University is at Lexington, Virginia.