Lois Walker; Ordained La Colonia Pastor

Longtime Oxnard resident Lois Walker, an ordained minister who was pastor of her own church in La Colonia for more than 30 years, died Saturday after a brief illness. She was 77.

Known to her parishioners as Sister Walker, she was born Dec. 24, 1921, in Marietta, Texas. She graduated from Bethlehem High School and attended Bishop College before moving to Southern California to be near family in the late 1940s.

She married Jeff Walker in 1951 and they moved to Oxnard’s La Colonia neighborhood. They divorced several years later but by then, Walker was well on her way to becoming a minister, said her niece, Audree Robinson of Oxnard.

She was ordained in the early 1960s and conducted a fellowship in churches in El Rio, Oxnard and Port Hueneme before launching the Oxnard Full Gospel Mission Church on McKinley Street in 1967. Robinson said her aunt was the first African American woman to preside over a church in Oxnard.

“She felt she was called by God to preach,” Robinson said. “If I had a problem, I could go to her for prayer. We all could. She was a very caring and compassionate person.”

Until recently, Walker also operated a board-and-care home for mentally ill patients released from Camarillo State Hospital.

Walker is survived by a son, Johnnie Walker of Pacoima; a brother, Willie G. McCoy of Camarillo; two sisters, Fessie Nickleberry and Nealie Driver of Oxnard; three grandchildren, and several nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her twin sister, Floris Washington 10 years ago.

A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at Trinity Baptist Church in Oxnard.

James A. Reardon Funeral Home of Oxnard is handling the arrangements.