Kathleen Brooks (Walker) Wicker

Kathleen Brooks Walker Wicker died peacefully on May 29, 2026 having achieved her goal of celebrating her 100th birthday last November with a joyous party attended by sixty-five family members and friends.

Born on a farm in Lee County, NC, on November 17, 1925, Kathleen was the eldest child and only daughter born to Lucy Mary Brooks and Robert Siler Walker.  Her earliest memory was of tying wheat behind her daddy as he walked the field cutting with a scythe and cradle.

As was typical in those days in rural North Carolina, Kathleen was raised in a home with no electricity or running water.  She helped her parents purchase their first appliance, a refrigerator, after she started her first paying job at the age of eighteen at Sprott Brothers Furniture Store in Sanford. Like so many children of the Great Depression, what she observed and experienced during those tumultuous years shaped her life.   Kathleen had a rigorous work ethic, wasted not one ounce of anything and was highly risk adverse. 

Kathleen recalled that when the school bus got stuck in the mud, the children got off the bus to push it, climbing back onto the bus with muddy feet and clothes to continue to school.  When she finally got to school, one of her first-grade friends was a little boy from the Deep River Community in Sanford, Isaac Wicker.  She would marry him in 1950.

Kathleen graduated from Deep River High School and Sanford Business School.  She spent her career as a bookkeeper, first at Sprott Brothers Furniture Store in Sanford, then at the Red Springs Mill and Graham’s Department Store in Red Springs, NC and finally, at Hudson Belk in Cary, NC.

We will miss Kathleen’s warm spirit as well as her coconut cake.  

In addition to her parents, Kathleen is predeceased by her husband, Isaac Jesse Wicker; foster son, Herbert Burns; and brothers Robert Tandy Walker and William Merrit Walker.  She is survived by her daughter, Lucy Brooks Wicker (Pat); one granddaughter, Susan Burns Covington (Matt); and one brother, Jesse Lee Walker.  She cherished her many nieces, nephews and cousins.   

A private graveside service was held at Flat Springs Baptist Church, Sanford, NC.  Gifts in Kathleen’s memory can be made to Greenwood Forest Baptist Church, 110 SE Maynard Rd, Cary, NC 27511 or to a charity of your choice.    

To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Kathleen Brooks (Walker) Wicker, please visit our floral store.