Walter Harry Ebert

Walter Harry Ebert was born on November 20, 1901 in Illinois, United States. His parents were Joachim "Joseph" Ebert and Katharina (Schairen) Ebert, both German immigrants.

Walter was the youngest of four children, with older sisters Hulda, Amanda, and Wanda all also born in Illinois. The family was Lutheran, though Walter did not practice faith as an adult.

On September 25, 1937, Walter married Annabel Stumm in Urbana, Illinois. Their only child, Roger Ebert, became a famed Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic. The family lived at 410 E. Washington St in eastern Urbana.

Walter was an electrician for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has been described as "an electrician who earned enough to keep his family out of hard times, but was determined to see that his son carve out a bigger future for himself."

Walter died of lung cancer on September 22, 1960 in Urbana. He is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Urbana, next to his wife and near his parents.

In 2010, Roger Ebert published an essay about his father. It is very much worth reading.

• http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=92205071
• http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/04/410_east_washington_street....
• http://www.biography.com/people/roger-ebert-554976
• http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/06/my_vocation_as_a_priest.html