The late Wade Walker made his debut in Basinger in 1905 and was one of the four children of Mattie Raulerson Walker and Hamp Walker. While the family moved about a bit during the early years of young Wade’s life, they eventually settled back in Okeechobee, where Wade considered himself a life-long resident until his death. His mother was the first postmaster in "Tantie," he said during an 1988 interview. She served in the post until June 7, 1902 when her father, Peter Raulerson was appointed to the post. There is a story that during the time Mattie Walker was postmaster, the official post office was in a box under her bed.

From Basinger, the family moved to Delray, where some of Hamp Walker’s brothers were into tomato farming. From Delray the family moved to Fort Pierce, and in 1913, Okeechobee became home once more, this time moving back with the family and belongings with a mule team. "Daddy did most anything that came along. He was a deputy sheriff for a long time. He used to fish on the lake. He farmed quite a bit. He worked at different jobs and at different places." Wade recalled. "He worked at Fellsmere at the cane mill. For a long time, until he died, he as the quarter boss there,"

"I lost mother in 1918 in the flu epidemic. Smith Drawdy was the first sheriff, and he lost his wife and boy and himself. Lester McCee’s mother died and there wasn’t no crossing of anything at the creek (Taylor Creek) and they had to cross in a boat. One of them died in the evening and one in the morning and they waited until the second one died before they took the boat and brought them both across at the same time," he said.

He recalled the look of South Parrott Avenue as he remembered the years between 1914 and 1916, when he attended school in the schoolhouse which is now the county historical museum. "It was quite a place. They only had two rooms. The first teacher, Miss Steffee, they built her a little old cabbage (palm) shanty. Then they decided to build around 1906 and they built the one that’s out on highway 98," he said. "That old schoolhouse stayed there for a long, long time. It had only two rooms to start with and they finally added another room to it. The old schoolhouse was located on South Parrott Avenue between Southwest Fourth and Southwest Sixth Streets.

"Boromei had a house along there and Carl Walker built a nice house. He had a nice building close to the old schoolhouse," Wade recalled. He said that growing up in Okeechobee wasn’t to much different from what the children do today. "We would have a little ball game. We played baseball. And, we just did a little of this and a little of that," he said, with a twinkle in his eye.

During September 1926, Wade was working as a commercial fisherman out of Big Bare Beach, which was located in Glades County near Harney Pond Canal. He said that he and the group of fishermen out on the lake had no idea they were in the middle of a hurricane. They were living on the lake on a houseboat, and the fishing boats were kept tied to the houseboat. "I was fishing over this side of Moore haven at what they called Istokpoga Canal, then. It has another name now, Harney Pond. We were fishing out on the lake about four of five miles. That morning, we got up and we got ready to fish. I got up and ate an egg, and the boat began to drift. The houseboat had those big, old wooden anchors. They tied the houseboats with them. You got what they call the anchor ropes that come up to the posts in the inside at the corners. We had about three big ropes and it began to drag. So, we went over the side (of the houseboat) and began to ride the anchors to help hold it down until the anchors caught. It finally did get caught. Then, it got so rough, we couldn’t get overboard to ride the anchors anymore.

"We stayed and roughed it out. The fishing boats were tied up to the anchors behind, and a long boat that we used to haul the fish was tied up in from of the houseboat, which was a barge. We went to take car of it (the long boat) and we finally got it loose and it broke a hole in the end of the houseboat where you could knock a barrel through it. "About the time it broke loose, here come a big, high wave. I imagine the waves were 15 to 20 feet high. I really don’t know how high they were, but they were plenty high. We went back to the other boats that was tied behind and another couple of waves came up and hey broke loose and there we all sat on that houseboat with a hole in the end of it, and the water just a coming in. We finally decided we’d have to cut a hole larger and put a tub in it. We cut a hole in the end and fit the tub.

"We saw we were going to have to cut the anchor ropes and just let it drift. We didn’t know where we were going from there. We cut the anchor ropes at each of the corner posts at the same time so it wouldn’t turn sideways. If it had, it would have tipped over and there’s no telling what would have happened. "We did have the sense of mind enough to cut them both at the same time. When we cut the ropes, it seemed like that thing just picked up and sailed. We had one anchor left and I crawled around and tied it on so I could straighten the boat so the hole would be in front of us and not behind. No telling how far we ere before I got the change to throw that anchor over. We drifted that night and we lifted right up to another houseboat that was anchored pretty close to where we was. They had just let theirs drag along and it went way back up in the marsh. That night, we drifted right up to the side of them.

"All day long, we had been fighting that storm, and it was pretty rough. We decided to get something to eat. We hadn’t eaten all day. We tried that, but we didn’t want much. I decided I didn’t want anything to eat, and I crawled up on one of those little bunks we had there and I went to sleep". "Next morning, we didn’t realize what we had been through. We went back in there (the marsh) to get the big boat because it had the fish in it and the ice. It was way back up in the marsh even further back. We used one of their boats (the other houseboat), since we didn’t have any left, and we turned it around front and anchored it to make a trail to get out. The only way we had water was to take a shovel and dip some of that ice and let it melt. We made a channel back there and dug it out to where we could get the boat out. It took quite a long time to do that".

"I am lucky to be here. We still weren’t thinking and after a couple of days, a fellow came by and told us about all the damage that had been done in different places. We were about eight to ten miles anchored this side (northeast) of Moore Haven. When he come to us and told us about all the people who had drowned in Moore Haven, I caught the first boat out. I said, "You can stay here, but I am going."