Narcissus Estelle Walker Atkinson, October 07, 1903 - January 24, 1999, of Cedar Croft, Virginia.
Richmond Times-Dispatch, January 27, 1999:"ATKINSON - Mrs. Estelle Walker Atkinson, age 95, of Cedar Croft, Cumberland County, died January 24, 1999, in Farmville. Survived by one daughter, June A. Plummer of Calif.; one son, Clinton Jones Atkinson Jr. of New York City; four grandchildren and four great-grandsons. Family will receive friends after 9:30 a.m. Thursday at Doyne-Burger-Davis Funeral Home, Farmville, where services will be conducted at 10:30 a.m. Interment 1:30 p.m. Richmond National Cemetery. Remembrances to Buckingham Public Library, Dillwyn Branch, P.O. Box 530, Dillwyn, Va. Doyne-Burger-Davis Funeral Home in charge."
Richmond Times-Dispatch, January 28, 1999:"FUNERAL TODAY FOR RETIRED TEACHER - N. Estelle Walker Atkinson's interest in the world around her was boundless. A retired schoolteacher and bibliophile, she was a former newspaper columnist and a fierce believer in the Baptist faith. The Buckingham County resident died Sunday at the age of 95. A funeral for Mrs. Atkinson will be held Thursday at 10:30 a.m. at Doyne-Burger-Davis Funeral Home in Farmville. Burial will be Thursday at 1:30 p.m. at Richmond National Cemetery, 1701 Williamsburg Road, in Richmond. Born in Bracey, Mrs. Atkinson grew up in Richmond. She graduated from what was then Averett Junior College in Danville before marrying in 1926. She spent the first of her married life in the Panama Canal Zone, where her husband, the late Clinton Jones Atkinson Sr., worked for the federal government's Panama Railroad Co. Mrs. Atkinson took a job with the federal government as an accountant for the U.S. Office of the Foreign Liquidation Commission. In Panama, she spent Sunday afternoons traveling to remote villages as a missionary. "My mother was born again before there were born-agains," said her son, Clinton Atkinson Jr. "She would stop every peasant she could find walking down the road...and ask them if they knew about Jesus." When the couple returned to the States, they bought an old stone home, Cedar Croft, near Dillwyn in Buckingham County, and spent much of heir time restoring the structure. She returned to school in her late 40s and earned a bachelor's degree from Longwood College. She later earned two master's degrees from the school. She taught in Cumberland public schools briefly and later taught science at Prince Edward Academy, now the Fuqua School. While in Panama, she developed a penchant for collecting orchids and butterflies, and after returning to Virginia, she began collecting and preserving other creatures and insects as well, her son said. "Her grandchildren loved to take their friends down into the basement and show them all the wild and curious things she kept down there." Her folksy social column, "Gold Hill Nuggets," appeared in the Farmville Herald in the early 1980s. She also worked to establish the Buckingham County Library. In addition to her son, she is survived by a daughter, June Atkinson Plummer of Walnut Creek, California. Memorial contributions may be made to the Dillwyn Branch of the Buckingham County Library, P.O. Box 530, Dillwyn, VA 23936."
Estelle is buried in plot 3B 0 6089 of Richmond National Cemetery.
