Walk, Don’t Run: Council President’s Deliberate Path

Mary Walk is Swarthmore Borough Council president. Photo: Andy Shelter

Mary Walk says yes to things.

She said yes in 2015 when the Swarthmore Democratic Committee was looking for someone to run for Swarthmore Borough Council. Two years later, she said yes when Swarthmore Borough Solicitor Robert Scott asked her if she’d consider running for Delaware County Register of Wills. She was elected to that post in 2017.

Then, in 2020, she resigned that post to take on a new challenge: Director of the Delaware County Office of Judicial Support. From her office at the back of a warren of cubicles — only half occupied now, with clerks working alternate days for social distancing — she supervises a staff of 56. A lot of the work involves keeping track of records of criminal sentences, warrants of arrests, hearing transcripts, and orders for protection from abuse. 

Why did she want the job?

“I like managing people,” Walk says. “I had experience with the union.” She smiles as she adds, “And it was right across the hall, so I thought I could just come over.”

Around the same time she was moving across that hallway in the Media courthouse, her colleagues on Swarthmore Borough Council elected Walk to the council’s presidency. That job entails making sure everyone has time to speak while still getting through an agenda, which, she concedes, isn’t always easy. But, Walk says, “I like a challenge.” 

The Covid-19 pandemic has made both positions hard. Walk says she never dreamed that the Office of Judicial Support would be closed to the public less than a month after she started working there, or that she’d be presiding over borough council meetings on Zoom. “I’ve learned to expect the unexpected,” she says. “I’m never disappointed.”

The Road to the Public Service

Walk grew up in the city of Chester, the daughter of a homemaker and a cab driver. Neither of her parents finished high school. In fact, Walk’s father did not even finish grade school, instead going to work at age 12 to help support his family. “He had to go to work in a mill out in Lenni,” Walk recalls. “He made sackcloth.”

Despite her parents’ lack of education, Walk always believed she would go to college. “I knew I would go somehow,” she recalls. But there was no money to pursue that dream when she finished high school. Instead, she went to work in the copy room at FMC, a diversified chemical corporation in Philadelphia. Eight years later, when her first child was born, she started taking classes — one at a time — at Delaware County Community College. Eventually, when her husband David took a job in New Jersey, she enrolled at Rutgers University full time and finished her bachelor’s degree, majoring in English.

“I liked ‘The Faerie Queene,’” she recalls, referring to the 16th-century epic poem by Edmund Spenser. She wrote her senior thesis on the female voice in T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Wasteland.” Elected to Phi Beta Kappa, she graduated just months before her third child was born.

After a couple of years at home, Walk began contemplating law school. She figured she’d take the law school admissions test and see how she did. She had worked for a while as a legal secretary, and David was a prosecutor, so she knew she liked the profession. And she liked to write. Contrary to what many think, Walk explains, being a lawyer is not really about arguing. “It’s about understanding the issues,” she says. “Being able to research and write persuasively.”

Walk applied to only one law school. Temple University was a good school, she knew, and affordable. She thought, “If I get into Temple, I’ll go.” She got in. 

At 41 years old, Walk finally became a lawyer. She started working part-time at some firms in Media, then full-time in Philadelphia and Chester County. Her current position in the Office of Judicial Support doesn’t technically require a law degree, but she says that having one helps. She enjoys the public-service aspect of the job. “I feel like I’m using my law degree for something worthwhile.”

Back to Delco

The Walks chose to live in Swarthmore when they moved back from New Jersey for the same reasons many people cite: the schools, the sidewalks, and how lovely the town looks in spring. Also for the sense of community. 

When Walk’s daughter Elizabeth was about 10 years old, she was allowed to ride her bike from their North Chester Road house into town. “Of course, we told her twenty times, don’t talk to any strangers,” Walk recalls.

But when the girl had trouble lifting her bike over a curb, a man she didn’t know came over to help her. He looked at her — looked into her face — and said, “Oh! You must be a Walk.”

“That always stuck with me,” Walk says. “That in this town, he looked at the kid’s face and knew who she was.”

As a council member, Walk knows there’s more to running a small town than meets the eye. A great deal of work goes into making sure things run smoothly enough that residents can take it for granted. She credits the volunteers who serve on the borough’s many committees and commissions. And she especially credits Borough Manager Jane Billings, saying, “I don’t know if people realize how good she is at her job.”

Walk appeals to residents to stay in touch with their council members, and to contact them directly when they have problems or complaints. “Come to a meeting,” she urges. “Get involved.” She notes that council members are not available through social media sites like Nextdoor, instead responding to phone calls and emails. Contact information for all borough council members is on the borough website, swarthmorepa.org. 

“You could call any one of us about whatever’s on your mind,” she continues. “We’re on council because we care about the town.”