Alice Kelley Baker 1912-2004

LYONS, KELLEY, BAKER

Posted By: Lori Clark (email)
Date: 3/30/2004 at 10:01:23

Gay & Ciha Funeral and Cremation Service
Iowa City – 319-338-1132

Iowa City Press Citizen – paid
Cedar Rapids Gazette – paid

Iowa City Dateline:

Alice Kelley Baker, age 91 longtime Iowa City resident died Monday, March 29, 2004 at Greenwood Manor Care Center in Iowa City.

Family and friends may gather after 9:00 a.m., Saturday, April 3, 2004 at Gay & Ciha Funeral and Cremation Service with services being held at 10:00 a.m. Burial will follow at Memory Gardens Cemetery in Iowa City.

Alice Winifred Lyons was born June 9, 1912, in Frazier Corners, Wisconsin weighing 3.5 lbs. Her parents were Mike and Louise Lyons. She had two older sisters, Gladys and Lucille, and one older brother, Gene.

She married James E. Kelley with whom she opened Kelley Optical in Iowa City. James was killed in an automobile accident in 1947. They had three sons: Jim, Jerry and John. In 1951, she married Edward M. Baker. They were active members of the Iowa City community. They loved their cottages in Door County, spending many months there with family and their great friends, Bob and Elva Davis and George and Katy Nagle. Mr. Baker died in 1999.

Alice loved her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, her golf, playing bridge, cooking for family, her schnauzer dogs, and an occasional nip of Jim Beam!

Her family includes her three sons and their wives: Lauretta, Pat and Maria. She loved the wives for many good reasons, but mainly because they loved her sons. There are seven grandchildren, Jim and Lauretta’s children, Krista, Mike and Karrie; Jerry and Pat’s children, Mark and Scott; and John and Maria’s children, Katy and Chris; three great-grandchildren, Cameron and Hunter Frederick Wray, Krista’s children, and Audrey Alice Wilson Gottschild, Karrie’s child.

She was preceded in death by her parents, sisters, brother, and her husbands.

Her last years were spent at Greenwood Manor where she was always treated well, but they were tough years for a women who loved an active life. Alice was a member of the First United Methodist church for over seventy-five years, always sitting in the same pew next to Ed who was certainly humming a hymn. They are in a happier place now and I suspect Ed is once again humming to Alice. We will miss them.