Walter Farmer was born in
Alliance, Ohio, and received a bachelor's degrees in mathematics and architecture from
Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He went on to be active as a genealogist and was prominent in the museum field in Ohio and Texas. His marriages to both Josselyn Liszniewska and to Renate Hobirk ended in divorce. Farmer died of cancer on 11 August 1997 at the age of 86 at Christ Hospital in
Cincinnati. He had a daughter, Margaret Farmer Planton; two grandsons; and a sister, Evelyn Krickbaum. ==Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program==