By Sharon Oliver
Contributing Writer
WORCESTER – Sometimes it is the least famous person who can make the most lasting impression. They don’t always have to do much or be internationally known. Such is the case with Walter Joseph Barch of Worcester, better known as The Whistler or The Fox, as he called himself.
Long daily walks in the area
Trim, fit and seemingly without an ounce of unwanted fat, Barch routinely trotted throughout Worcester and surrounding towns such as Clinton, Shrewsbury, Holden, Leicester and Westborough during the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. Barch whistled along the way, often wearing a painter’s cap and a bright yellow slicker bearing words detailing his life’s story. He said he walked at least 30 miles a day, so that he could never be accused of being somewhere he was not and whistled so he could never be accused of sneaking up on a person. People waved or blew their car horns when they saw him. He was a familiar face to many and a friendly person to greet who could imitate bird calls and emit ear-piercing whistles.
Jimmy Conway wrote on Facebook:
“I remember him like it was yesterday. We’d be playing in the street, and we could hear him whistling away, always looking forward to waving to him and saying hello.”
Kal Jones added:
“He had his life history written on back of his sleeveless yellow raincoat he always wore. You’d yell ‘Whistler,’ and you get that great whistle back. Seems like life was different back then IMHO.”
Joe Mattero also wrote:
“I was kid, I used to hear him first, then see him. Very pleasant individual who loved to say hello and give you a whistle in the note of a tune of whatever came into his mind. Sometimes he would wear a cardboard sign around his neck covering his chest and back with information on both sides stating I think places he had once been and people he had known or knows. All of us kids in my neighborhood would ride our bikes behind him listening to him as he walked upbeat to wherever his own destination lay. Fun memories!”
Troubled past
Life had not always been kind to Barch. He once worked in construction, fought as a professional lightweight boxer with 23 undefeated fights under his belt, served in the military as an antitank gunner and paratrooper during World War II and was a Purple Heart recipient. Years following his discharge, Barch was arrested for the assault of an eight-year-old girl and sentenced to 10 years in prison. At one point, he was even transferred from the former Norfolk State Prison Colony to Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
Michael Barch, his nephew, believed he was innocent and took poor legal advice. Describing his uncle as a gentle soul who never once got into trouble since his release from prison, Michael recalled one Christmas when his uncle visited his brother (Michael’s father) in the hospital and asked why the family had no Christmas tree. With lack of money being the reason, Walter took Michael, along with his brother and sister to buy a tree, decorations, lights, toys and food for the family.
As for how he got the nickname The Fox, Barch once explained that while at Bridgewater State Hospital, people would ask doctors if he was crazy or not to which doctors often replied, “Yes, crazy like a fox.” Barch received a key to the city of Worcester in March of 1995.
Refusing treatment while lying ill in a hospital, social workers reached out to Barch’s nephew, Michael. Test results showed he had cancer of the colon which unfortunately had already widely spread. Walter Barch died in October 1995 at the age of 73 but generations of Worcester area residents still remember him fondly 30 years after his passing.
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