My wife’s primary function when we attend funerals is to prevent me from stepping to the podium when the minister invites anyone “to say a few words” about the departed.

Last Monday she could not go with me to the funeral for my friend Larry Walton. There was no one to lay a restraining hand on my shoulder.

In anticipation I sat in a pew near the front with friend Sue Densmore, a few rows behind Larry’s widow Carol, their daughter Heather, and Heather’s husband Keith. Carol, who holds a degree in music, trained and accompanied generations of choirs, in addition to working at the Camera Mart with Larry. Parkinson’s has her in a wheelchair.

Heather was an only child, but she and Keith went forth and were fruitful in a manner to do credit to the old TV show “The Waltons,” not only in numbers but in their obvious love for and attachment to one another. The front pews opposite were filled with grandchildren, spouses and great-grandchildren, down to babe-in-arms Zeke, whose surname was his great-grandfather’s nickname. Several Walton progeny stepped up to tell the story of Larry and Carol, and share memories of a loving and much loved grandpa. Some came forward in pairs with the second as support, for more than one came near dissolving in tears.

I fell in love with photography in a darkroom class at WVU in 1970, which happened to be the same year that Larry and Carol bought the Camera Mart from Don Eckert. Larry had worked several years for Don.

The Camera Mart on Market Street, East Liverpool, was a place where photographers could get expert advice and photographic services, and speak to each other in their own language of f-stops, lens lengths, shutter speeds and film ASA. Larry involved himself in the photo industry with the same zeal he gave to community organizations. He liked referring to the Eastman Kodak Company as “God in the yellow box.”

Larry’s love of photography included nurturing it in others, such as his sponsorship of the Tri-State Camera Club, a group of mostly, ahem, mature men, when I knew them, who met monthly for decades in a room above the shop. Paul Ward, Fred Fischer, Bob Wise, Chuck Karcher, Cedric Wilson, Skip Dawson, Harold Lawton and the irrepressible Ira Sayre were among members. Fellow photographer Mike Smith, who came up from the Carolinas to attend Larry’s funeral, remembers those names better than I. Mike worked at the Camera Mart for 22 years, beginning when he was only 15.

In the shop’s later years, Larry and Carol took a huge financial plunge to purchase their own automated color developing and printing machines to compete with WalMart and drug store photo processing. Many times Larry would open the shop just for me on a Saturday evening to run off 50 or 60 color 8×10 prints of high school class reunions so I could deliver pictures before they finished dessert.

For years there was a hole in the middle of the carpet at the Camera Mart. I think Larry left it like that because he loved telling the story of how I got on the floor to cut a picture matte and cut that hole in his brand-new carpeting.

Another favorite story was about the instant respect fellow light aircraft pilots gave him whenever they found out he flew out of Herron Airport. Herron is up over the hill from our farm in Hancock County, W.Va., and by the way was built in the 1940s and operated by Earl Herron, a cousin of my father. It is legendary because the runway has a hump in it, so that pilots sitting at one end can’t see the other end, and is crossed by an active county road, appropriately named Herron Road. Signage forbids pilots from using the county road to taxi, and cautions motorists to stop and look both ways for planes landing or taking off.

Larry’s 28 years on the East Liverpool school board should by itself earn him a halo. As a newspaper reporter I covered the board during two different time periods. In the 1980s, under President Charles Thomas, the board worked in harmony. After the meetings we had cookies. In the 2000s, when President Maureen Aronoff kept board records in her car and board members included Gary Bonnell and my highly principled friend Richard K. Wolf, lawsuits and acrimony often ruled.

Remarks from Mike Parkes, another distant cousin to the Waltons, included a tale about a field trip to the Gettysburg Battlefield when he was a teenager. Larry was an adult leader. Mike said he and a friend (allegedly with Larry’s complicity) snuck into hallowed ground after dark to sleep out under the Eternal Light Peace Memorial, a violation of park regulations if not federal law. Mike declined to tell the outcome of that misadventure.

Verneta Martin spoke movingly of Larry’s lifelong friendship with her late husband, John Henry Martin, from the time they were classmates at Wellsville High School. John Henry, remembered in this area for his deep, beautiful singing voice, held the same servant’s heart commitment to community as did Larry. In her husband’s final illness, Mrs. Martin said, Larry visited him every day in the hospital, bringing him the morning newspaper and leaving a note of encouragement. She treasures those notes, and plans to make copies for the Waltons.

At the service’s conclusion, Larry’s flag-draped coffin was brought outside for a military tribute by the Tri-State Burial Group, recognizing his service in the U.S. Army Reserves. Each pallbearer, all family members, wore something in Potter blue. After a rifle salute, the flag was folded and presented to his widow, with thanks on behalf of the President and a grateful nation.

At the luncheon afterward in the church basement, I noticed Jan Toot standing beside Carol Walton, holding her hand as they talked. Suddenly the two of them began singing, smiling to each other as their voices lifted in a beautiful melody. It was a reminder to me that in the depths of loss and grief, there is life, there is joy.

Postscript: I asked Mike Parkes later for the outcome of his story. His answer: “It was sort of anti-climactic. We spent the first part of the night laying there, listening to kids making out under the Eternal Flame. Shame on them. We spent the rest of the night keeping out of sight of the national park rangers.”

If Larry somehow gets to read this, he will laugh his wings off.