Kevin Leslie Walter

Kevin Leslie Walter, 69, passed away peacefully from heart disease on Tuesday, April 23, 2024 with his family by his side.  

Funeral services will be held at 12 p.m. on Saturday April 27, 2024 at the Grand Ridge Funeral Home.  Burial will follow in Grand Rapids Cemetery.  A visitation will be held at 10:30 a.m. until the time of service at the funeral home.  Serving as pallbearers will be Jason Blunk, Nick Jaegle, Joel Weiss, Preston, Caden and Owen Walter.  Honorary pallbearers will be Adam and Ted Walter. 

Born February 26, 1955 to Vernon and Edna (Hallett) Walter in Ottawa, Kevin was raised on the family farm in rural Grand Ridge with his seven siblings.  He was active in agricultural pursuits, achieving both the DeKalb Agricultural Accomplishment Award and IL FFA State Star Farmer award before graduating Ottawa Township High School in 1973.  He went on to complete the Agriculture Short Course at the University of Wisconsin – Platteville and also attended Western Illinois University.  

Kevin raised crops, cattle and hogs his entire life in the Grand Ridge area, first with his father and brothers and later with his sons and grandsons. He was a longtime member of the LaSalle County Farm Bureau.  

Kevin was an independent man who loved his family and led by steady example.  He enjoyed bass and walleye fishing, whether it was watching his grandkids at the pond he built or during annual treks to the lakes of Bemidji, Minnesota.  Alongside farming, he enjoyed listening to the a.m. radio, reading AgriNews and AgTalk, a hot cup of coffee, Sunday breakfasts with his brothers and family gatherings with his kids and grandkids.  Like any respectable farmer, he always knew the weather forecast.     

Kevin is survived by two sons, Adam (Brooke) Walter of Grand Ridge and Ted (Cynthia) Walter of Huntington Beach, CA, and one daughter Kerri (Jason) Walter Blunk of Marseilles.  Also surviving are grandchildren Preston, Caden, and Owen Walter; Nolan Blunk and Dorothy and Davis Walter; brothers Dean, Carl (Wendi), Elmer (Rachel Parker) and Kenny, a sister Janis Wade, numerous nieces and nephews, and his former wife Linda Kay (Dooley) Walter.  

Kevin was preceded in death by his parents, two brothers Dale Walter and Ray Walter, a sister-in-law Rosemary Walter and a brother-in-law Don Wade. 

Memorials may be directed to the Grand Ridge Volunteer Fire Department, where his grandson Preston is an active volunteer.  

“It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight and not cut corners; somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week’s work with a five-mile drive to church; somebody who would bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh, and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says that he wants to spend his life ‘doing what dad does’. So God made a farmer.”  - Paul Harvey 1978