Well-known Hoboken Letter Writer and Author 'T. Weed' Passes Away

HOBOKEN, NJ — Dale "T. Weed" Walker, a published novelist and frequent letter writer to the weekly Hoboken Reporter newspaper from the late 1980s until recently, has passed away at age 85, his family said.

Walker, who moved to Hoboken in 1962, was among the familiar characters whose words alternately incensed or mollified people as the city transformed in the 1980s from an affordable enclave to a gentrifying mile-square city of new condos and suspicious fires.

The controversies of the time were frequently hashed out in the popular letters pages of the Hoboken Reporter, which was downsized and folded into a smaller all-county edition in 2019 (a matter that anguished Walker enough to ask in a letter last fall, "Where Has My Hudson Reporter Gone?") The Reporter letters pages became such a popular read in the 1980s that the Reporter published a book of its letters, Yuppies Invade My House At Dinnertime, in 1987 — including words from Weed. The book was reviewed in the New York Times and is taught in college sociology classes today.

Walker said in a 2010 interview, about his pen name, “It just came to be as a catchy kind of thing, out of the blue. And it has been all this time.”

Walker published a book of his adventures in Saudi Arabia, Fool's Paradise, in 1988 through Bloomsbury Press. He also published a memoir called Sketches of a Texas Boyhood, and a novel about gentrification from the point of view of the landlord, called Natural Enemies. In addition, he self-published compilations of his Reporter letters. One of those compilations is in the Hoboken Historical Museum.

Walker passed away March 7.

According to Walker's daughter Caitlin:

"Walker was born August 19, 1935 in Leon Springs, Texas (just outside San Antonio). He was the last of eight children. He joined the army in 1955 to get the G.I. Bill at the tail end of the Korean War. He was stationed in Germany.

"Afterward, Walker lived in San Francisco and met his future wife, Ruth, at San Francisco State University. They traveled through Europe, living in Spain for about a year.

"All his life my father was writing constantly — that being the driving force throughout his life. My parents came to Hoboken in 1962 after unhappily living in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn and immediately loved it. They felt it had the small town feel of towns in Europe. At that time it was all longshoremen and very few young/beatnik artists like themselves.

"In the early 70's my father had an opportunity to teach English in Saudi Arabia to Saudis for the American companies Tumpane and Northrop. He had four different contracts lasting about seven years. They came back to Hoboken after buying, sight unseen, their first house in Hoboken with two small children (Aron Walker, now 50 and Caitlin Walker, born in Saudi Arabia, now 48.

"He returned to Saudi Arabia in 1981, with the help of a friend living and teaching there, who helped get him a visa. He went there to get the narrative for a travel book he had in mind. The book, Fool's Paradise (Random House 1988) took eight years to write.

"In the early '80s he began a long history of writing letters to the editor of the Hoboken Reporter under the pseudonym T. Weed. He wrote letters up until his death on March 7th. His books of Letters are 'Enough Rope,' 'More Rope,' Dang 'Em, Hang 'Em,' and 'Roped and Hog-Tied.'

"Other books by my father are 'Natural Enemies' (fiction), 'Sketches of a Texas Boyhood' (memoir), 'Light, Spright, Bright, Tight' (poetry) and his last, a collection of three essays about Arabia called 'Arabian Triptych.'

"My dad enjoyed gardening. He composted all his scraps and planted vegetables in his rich soil. He enjoyed gathering around his kitchen table with people drinking and discussing every subject under the sun, nothing was taboo. He loved tennis and golf. He was a good natured person, always smiling and cheerful. I've never seen him in a bad mood.

"He was generous with others and a wonderful father to my brother and I and loving grandfather to William (13) and Dylan (10)."

Walker owned a home on Garden Street.

• Read the Hudson Reporter's obit of Walker here.
• Read Walker's recent letter about his new book here.
• Read a Reporter story about T. Weed from 2010 here.

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