Tamara Sue Walter’s

TAMARA SUE WALTERS — or as her daughter calls her, Tams — 62, passed away in her childhood home on October 18, 2024. She was born on June 20, 1962, with her father Jim’s big blue eyes, and grew up in Ceredo, WV with her parents, Jim and Hope, and her four older siblings, Jolly, Donny, Patti, and Kenny. On long car rides to Nags Head, where the family went to vacation on the beach every year, she was famous for complaining of nausea to get a prime seat up front with her parents. She played the flute in her high school marching band, got into polite but regular mischief with her best friends Kim and Patti, and loved flying with her dad, who was a pilot.

After enrolling at Marshall University, where she studied to be a paralegal, the beach called to Tams again. She moved to the west coast of Florida, and worked at a radio station on Longboat Key. It would spark a lifelong love of sailing. She eventually moved to Miami to work at a music video company called The Box, where she found herself in situations that, later recounted to her daughter and friends, had them screaming “WHAT?!” She was a self-described introvert who disliked attention but somehow found herself partying with music royalty. She had the time of her life.

She left that job after her daughter, Morgan, was born in 1995. Tams wouldn’t consider it editorializing to say that being a mom was the best job she ever had. They were Tams and Morgs: They were inseparable, and they were the best of friends. Tamara brought her own childlike wonder at the world to parenting. She made elaborate scavenger hunts around the house on holidays; smashed eggs on Morgan’s head when they were baking; pulled Morgan fully clothed into the bath just to make her laugh. Life wasn’t always easy, but that was okay — navigating loss is possible when you have your soulmate by your side.

Tams was a rare creature — in awe of every beautiful thing she saw, and not ashamed to express it. She was equally likely to sit in her rocking chair listening to classical music as she was to bellow at the TV during a basketball game. As a hobby photographer, she saw the texture of the world in great detail. There wasn’t a sunset or a plant she didn’t love. When she wasn’t with friends, she spent most nights on her patio tending to her riot of orchids; much like her mom Hope, she could coax even the farthest gone plant back to life.

She is preceded in death by her beloved brother, Jolliffe Edward Walters, and her parents, Jim and Hope Walters. She is survived by her siblings James Donovan Walters, Patricia Anne Jones, and Kenneth Michael Walters, as well as her daughter, Morgan Hope.