Editor’s note: This is the final installment in a nine-part series on SOUL Walk.
UNION CITY, Ind.- Cousins Lisa Ralston and Cheri Antrobus Davis were among the many who participated in the SOUL (Survivors of Unspeakable Loss) Walk at Harter Park here on Sept. 20.
Both were walking for Jennifer Yoder, Ralston’s 33-year-old daughter who recently died of a brain tumor.
“It went pretty good,” said Ralston about the walk. “It kind of hurt because it was where Jennifer’s last wish was held, but it helped being around friends and family out there [at Harter Park]. I did this for Jennifer who died in July and my son, Delmer Hall, who drowned when he was 3 years of age 30 years ago. Yes, the walk helped, but it is still new for me.”
Ralston said she plans to continue with this group and even purchased some t-shirts for the event.
“What Darla [Bowman, founder of SOUL] is doing is good,” Ralston said. “Darla supported Jennifer at her last wish and made cookies for my daughter.”
Jennifer’s last wish was to take her brother, Steven Davis Jr., to the Indiana Zoo. However, things changed.
“Jennifer passed a kidney stone and got sick so we did a carnival-type thing, which turned out well,” she said. “We will have Team Jennifer Brain Tumor Awareness every year in May. We will do this to help kids with cancer or brain tumors. We will take stuffed animals to Children’s Hospital in her name.”
“I also walked for my dad, Bruce Antrobus, my mom Judy McGuire and my best friend, Gayla Crabtree, who was murdered in 1995,” said Davis. “I do the walks every year to honor them. I even walked with Darla Bowman when it was in Richmond, which was the Out of the Darkness Walk to honor her mother, Carol Foster, who was like a second mom to me. I have always had a hard time coming to terms with the fact that Gayla Crabtree was murdered by her then husband Phil Lykins who is doing life in prison without parole in Oklahoma.”
Davis went on to say that the SOUL Walk has been a positive event for her.
“The SOUL Walk has been great therapy for me as I do not feel so alone with the loss of Gayla,” she said. “I still love and miss her everyday and it will be 20 years Oct. 28. I was in the house she was murdered in the day after her murder which was a brutal murder and the trial was the hardest thing I’ve ever been through. I will continue to honor her and my parents every year through the SOUL walk.”
