34 years before the events of Silent Hill 4: The Room, Walter’s biological parents lived in the town of Ashfield in Room 302 of the South Ashfield Heights apartment building. His father was possibly abusive as he screamed phrases such as “Stupid little crybaby!” and “Oh, shut the hell up! You can’t blame it all on me!”. Walter’s biological mother appears to have been kept silent as she is never heard or discussed in the game. It was speculated by the building superintendent, Frank Sunderland, that they may have had money troubles or had gotten themselves into danger.

When Walter was six years old, Dahlia Gillespie, another member of the cult, came to Wish House and told Walter that his mother was “asleep” in Ashfield. Every week, Walter traveled from the orphanage to South Ashfield Heights (a very long trip for a young child) by taking the subway or the bus. Unfortunately, someone else was living in Room 302, preventing him from being reunited with his “mother”. For years, Walter continued to travel to South Ashfield Heights, almost as if he was possessed, just to peek into the apartment building. The tenants began to complain and treat him badly when they saw him hanging around (especially one tenant, Richard Braintree) and Walter began to fear the tenants and saw them as obstacles preventing him from seeing his mother. Around this time, Walter had also learned to read and write, and kept a diary. He would also write letters to his mother and slip them under Room 302’s door, asking her why she wasn’t able to wake up.
Walter was forced into reading the cult’s scriptures and if he misbehaved, he would be sent to the “round cell” where Andrew DeSalvo would abuse him, along with the other children of the orphanage. As the years passed and Walter matured, he began to be more and more influenced by the teachings of the cult. Walter became preoccupied with one particular tract from the cult’s “Bible.” (The Descent of the Holy Mother — The 21 Sacraments).

The young couple fled the apartment and left the newborn baby behind. The infant was later discovered by Frank Sunderland, who turned the child over to the nearby St. Jerome’s Hospital. Frank had also kept Walter’s umbilical cord in a box in his room, feeling that it was too precious to throw away. After a stay in the hospital, Walter became a ward of the state and was adopted by the Wish House orphanage in a forest near Silent Hill. It was there that he began his tutelage in the ways of the Order, the cult that operated the orphanage, and was given the name “Walter.”

“By the 21 Sacraments, the Holy Mother shall appear in the countries of the world and shall bring salvation to the sinful ones.”
George Rosten, a priest of the Order’s Valtiel sect, had instructed and raised Walter in the 21 Sacraments ritual; in doing this, he let Valtiel into Walter’s subconscious, which allowed him to perform the ritual. Dahlia Gillespie continued to watch Walter’s progress until her imminent death in Silent Hill 1.