Mort Walker laid to rest in Westport

WESTPORT — Famous cartoonist Mort Walker was laid to rest Saturday in Westport.

Walker died peacefully at home due to complications from the flu on Jan. 27. He was 94.

The funeral procession for Walker made its way to Willowbrook Cemetery in Westport on Saturday. Walker was a World War II veteran who satirized the Army in newspaper comics that shows the antics of lazy private “Beetle Bailey.”

Walker was born Addison Morton Walker on Sept. 3, 1923, in El Dorado, Kansas. He aspired to be a cartoonist from a very young age, an obituary for him said. In his autobiography, Walker said he felt as if he was born into his comic profession.

“From my first breath, all I ever wanted to be was a cartoonist,” Walker wrote in the autobiography.

At the age of 10, Walker drew cartoons for his school newspaper. At the age of 11, he sold his first comic strip. At 13, his first comic strip, The Limejuicers, ran in the Kansas City Journal. And by 15, Walker was selling magazine cartoons all over the country.

Walker’s started his first full-time art job as a Hallmark greeting card designer while he went to Kansas City Junior College.

From 1942 to 1946, Walker served in the Army in Naples, Italy, where he advanced from a private to a first lieutenant. During his time in the war, he kept an illustrated diary. He would later say some of the people he met along the way inspired his Beetle Bailey characters.

After the war, Walker went to the University of Missouri. He graduated in 1948 with a humanities degree.

On Sept. 4, 1950, Walker’s Beetle Bailey comic made its debut. It initially ran in 12 newspapers.

In 1974, Walker founded the Museum of Cartoon Art in Greenwich. The museum was later moved to the Ward Castle in Rye Brook, New York. In 1996, the museum reopened as the International Museum of Cartoon Art in Boca Raton, Florida. Today, the collection is housed at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at Ohio State University.

Walker had seven children with his first wife, the late Jean Marie Suffill.

He is survived by his second wife Catherine Walker, several children and step-children, 15 grandchildren and one great granddaughter.

The funeral arrangements were not made public.

The family requested donations be made to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at Ohio State University. Online condolences can be made to the family at www.gallagherfuneralhome.com.