His Ancestry & Life
By: Gladys Elizabeth Baker, 1997
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In
New Orleans R.P.B. taught music and turned his hand at other available
employment. That first winter in New Orleans there was a big
snow
storm early in January. So unprecedented was this that all
businesses closed and everyone played in the -snow! Sometime
in
1889 the brothers moved to Weatherford, Jack County, Texas.
R.P.B. taught music and secondary school. It greatly amused
him
to hear students chanting their spelling, e.g. "b-u-izzard-izzard
a-r-d-, buzzard". There is no record of what Will did;
perhaps
he, too, taught school. Later he worked on railroads, usually
as
paymaster or supervisor of construction. He was known to be
adept
at solving railway construction problems. R.P.B. said he made
a
signal contribution in solving the problems connected with the entry of
nine trunk lines at Union Station, St. Louis, Missouri before the 1904
World's Fair there. His solution - back the trains in
probably
went unrewarded but in 1933 when Gladys first went to Washington
University in St. Louis the trains backed in.
Another
story of Will and railroads concerned a burly Scotsman who, when asked
by the paymaster to "make his cross" before he was paid, was so
incensed he knocked the paymaster down saying "No-one asks Angus
_________, B.A. Edinburgh University, to make his mark".
Many
years later when Uncle Will was filling in for a minister on vacation
from his parish in the upper peninsula of Michigan where logging was a
major industry he solved a railroad problem which he used to relate
with relish. The loggers used a narrow gauge track; an engine
had
jumped the track but there were complications. After Uncle
Will
suggested a solution which worked the foreman was very
grateful.
He announced he would come to hear Uncle Will preach the following
Sunday. After the service he said as he shook hands, "I'm
still
grateful to you for putting the wee engine back on the track, but the
least said about the sermon the better."
When
R.P.B. was president of Lamar College in Lamar, Missouri, Will taught
history and English literature there. The two Bakers left
there
in 1901 moving to Anna, Illinois where R.P.B. was co-principal of the
Anna Academy. In 1904 Will completed his studies for the
Episcopal ministry and was ordained in 1904. The same year he
married Maud Kirkpatrick of Anna, Illinois. After a pastorate
in
southern Illinois they moved to Bloomington, Illinois where Will |
 |
was
rector of St. Mark's. He served there for many years, later
moving first to Pontiac, then Momence, Illinois. His final
pastorate was at Evergreen, Colorado. He died in 1957 at his
retirement home in Roscoe, Missouri. The William Bakers had
three
children: Mary Elizabeth, 1905-1984; William Cornwall, 1907-1984; and
Richard Goodwin, 1911-19-.
One
of Will's stories which R.P.B. liked to tell was about a visiting
Bishop who, because of his rotundity, was having trouble getting into a
carriage when he was leaving. W. B. suggested that he turn
sideways. The Bishop asked him "My dear man, don't you know
there
is no sideways to a Bishop?"
Will
Baker was a great fisherman. In the summers he would
establish
his family at a campsite on the shore of Lake Michigan near Whitehall,
Michigan, then he would return to Bloomington until his vacation
time. Frances spent two vacations with the family at the
Michigan
camp and Gladys one. Both were compliments of their Aunt
Nellie. R.P.B. joined W.B. and nephew Dick for a week or so
one
summer but he was distinctly unhappy; he was not a happy
camper!
When he told us about it he said the first night was miserably
cold. Their gear had arrived only in time to set up one tent,
unpack the barest necessities and not enough blankets. The
two
put Dick between them. Dick's version was that he never had a
blanket over him the entire night - just one going over him from side
to side. R.P.B. said the crowning indignity was the next
morning
when they could not locate the coffee so had to drink tea!
Several
interesting Baker connections arose through the Goodwin line and the
Mary Hall who married a Thomas Goodwin, circa 1810. A direct
descendant was Albert Goodwin (circa 1850-1934?) a famous watercolor
painter. Some of his work hung in the Tate Gallery, London
where
R.P.B. and his wife saw it in 1903. A large picture titled
"Dante's Inferno" may have been done in oils. John Ruskin,
Slade
professor of art at Oxford University, told R.P.B. that he considered
him the greatest Victorian watercolor artist because of his genius with
color. The 1933 edition of "Who's Who", British, lists
several of
Goodwin's paintings, all with classical or biblical themes.
Aunt
Mary L. told us she had lunched with Albert Goodwin just before she
came to U.S. in 1922. He was quite elderly then.
When
Frances and Gladys visited R.P.B.'s cousin Wilfred Wright in 1928 at
his Surrey home, he gave us an Albert Goodwin painting called "The
Gleaners". It was a pastel and gouache painting of people
gleaning wheat fields showing them at work among shocked wheat at
sunset. The colors were very delicate as I recall.
This
painting now belongs to Anne Goodwin Baker Wroblewski, Richard Goodwin
Baker's daughter.
Through
Mary Hall who married a Goodwin in 1810, there is a connection with
Newman Hall. Mary's brother John Vine Hall was proprietor and
editor of the Maidstone Journal. He had several sons, three
of
whom Mary H. Goodwin took into her home to raise and educate.
The
eldest, Christopher a.k.a. Newman Hall, was a Congregational minister
in London. His congregation raised the cost of a new church -
63,000 pounds - in four years. The church is located at the
junction of Kennington and Westminster Bridge Roads. He was a
prolific writer. The best known of his tracts is "Come to
Jesus"
of which four million copies have been circulated in forty
languages. He visited U.S. twice: first during the Civil War,
preaching in Boston and later giving the first outside lecture at the
newly opened Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N.Y. He died
February
18, 1902.
The
middle son, Samuel, took to the sea, becoming master of a sailing ship
at age 22. Later he was an officer of a ship in the Cyrus
Field
expedition which successfully laid the North Atlantic cable in 1886.
Arthur
Hall was the youngest of the three boys Mary H. Goodwin took into her
home. He was a Congregational minister. His son,
also
Arthur Vine Hall (born 1862) was a Presbyterian minister and a
poet. In 1890 he moved to Capetown, South Africa. A
volume
of his poems "Poems of a South African" was published in
1928. It
included the famous song of the cicada, "Singsingetjie". Singsingetjie
is the name the Dutch give the cicada. It lives for four
years as
a grub underground, and then for six weeks as a winged
insect. It
sing-sings most on hottest days. The Greek story is that two
harpers were competing for a prize when a string snapped. A
Goddess sent a cicada to supply the missing notes and so her favorite
won.
Singsingetjie
Sing,
Singsingetjie, sing, sing, sing,
Sing
the song of the sun!
On
high where the blue and the pine-tops meet
Sing,
sing, sing in the fragrant heat;
While
the golden hammers of noontide heat
On
shimmering veld and dusty street --
Sing,
Singsingetjie, sing!
Sing,
Singsingetjie, sing, sing, sing,
Sing
the song of the sun!
After
the long years underground,
With
the cold damp darkness all around,
Sing
the glory of sunshine found;
Sing
'till the klantzes and kloofs resound -
Sing,
Singsingetjie, sing!
Sing,
Singsingetjie, sing, sing, sing,
Sing
the song of the sun!
Sing
as under the Grecian blue
You
sang when the harp-string snapped, and few
Of
all who acclaimed the harper knew,
The
missing notes were supplied by you.
Sing,
Singsingetjie, sing!
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