Ida Agnes BAKER

BAKER

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 2/10/2024 at 13:06:42

November 6, 1859 --- January 29, 1921

Remembering Ida Agnes Baker

Born on this day in 1859 in Pella, Iowa, Miss Baker made her way to Washington State and was among the first faculty members at Whatcom State Normal School in the fall of 1899. She taught music, grammar and nature studies and had a great fondness for birds, and in fact established one of the first bird sanctuaries in the United States at her home in Iowa.

Miss Baker took her teaching beyond the classroom by taking students on field trips to some property she owned on Lummi Island, as well as on “tramping” expeditions to explore nature and may have been one of the first group of all-women hikers to seriously hike in the Mount Baker Forest, travelling as far as Heliotrope Ridge.

Outside of teaching she was active in local community endeavors including the women’s suffrage movement which successfully saw Washington State achieve that right in 1910, long before the rest of the states.

Ida Agnes Baker was a much loved teacher and friend to many and died tragically on January 29, 1921, after being hit by a street car, while walking home from a League of Women Voters meeting.

In 2008 Ida Agnes Baker was awarded the YWCA NW Women’s Hall of Fame Legacy Award.

November 6, 2015
http://wwuheritageresources.tumblr.com/post/132683081950/remembering-ida-agnes-baker-born-on-this-day-in

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Ida Agnes Baker was an educator, writer, and ardent early environmentalist. In 1899 she became one of the nine founding faculty members of the Whatcom Normal School, later Western Washington University, in Bellingham, Washington. She taught grammar, music, and forestry. She was very close friends with her colleague, Catherine Montgomery, also a pioneering faculty member. When Baker arrived at the new campus, she was stunned by how the building construction had ruined the natural surroundings. Strongly influenced by her upbringing in Iowa where her mother had turned their family farm into a bird sanctuary, Baker quickly developed a landscape plan and planted trees, bushes, and flowers. She was especially interested in plants that would attract birds. Baker was known for her seemingly boundless energy. She organized the first women’s suffrage club in Bellingham. She was an active and visible member of the college faculty, often ridiculed for her suffrage work. Baker suffered serious vision problems. She was tragically killed by a street car on a stormy night as she walked home from a women's rights meeting. A bird sanctuary, which was created on campus in her memory, still remains directly west of Old Main Building on the Western Washington University campus.

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[buried in Rose Hill Cemetery, Eagle Grove, Iowa]