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Obituary : Roe Baker |
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 Roe Hugh BAKER Passed away in Los Gatos on Wednesday afternoon, February 3,
2010, at the age of 94. He lived a long and rich life. Born in San Francisco on
January 15, 1916 the son of Roe and Mary Dorothy Baker. Roe was the first of
four "Baker boys". He was a track star, a football player, and a cheer leader at
"Poly" High where he was a classmate and friend of Casper Weinberger President
Reagan's Secretary of War. He then attended the College of Marin and ultimately
the University of California, Berkeley, where he graduated in 1939. Roe met his
future wife, Edna Baker (nee Morgan), at the old Brockway resort on Lake Tahoe
the summer before he enrolled at Berkeley. They married in 1942. During the War,
Roe worked first as a hull foreman at the Kaiser Shipyard up in Richmond where,
as a War Bond stunt, he and his crew famously assembled a "Victory Ship" from
keel-to-truck in just 4-days. He subsequently attended Officer Candidate School
at Princeton, won a commission in the U.S. Navy, and ended up serving in both
the Atlantic and Pacific Theaters and was discharged as a lieutenant commander.
After the War, Roe and Edna settled in San Francisco where Roe went to work for
the Gellert family as a junior executive at Standard Building, the company which
spearheaded the post-war housing boom in the Sunset and Lakeside districts and
eventually developed Serramonte and the East Bay city of Hercules. Roe worked at
Standard for over thirty years, ascended to its board of directors, and retired
as one of its principal owners. Away from work, Roe was a man of peripatetic
interests and countless hobbies. He was an avid runner, a tireless hiker, an
adventuresome horseback rider, an accomplished photographer, a voracious reader,
an inspired painter, an erstwhile sculptor, a fearless sailor, an energetic
rower, a gifted gardener, a skilled wood-worker, and a perennial volunteer at
the San Francisco Children's Zoo. Roe's and Edna's storied marriage lasted 67
years until Edna's death last June at the age of 91. They sailed the Caribbean
together, climbed the Jungfrau, snorkeled the South Pacific, hiked the Sierra
Nevada, plumbed the Grand Canyon, photographed the Mojave, shopped the Ginza,
and trekked the Outback. Although they had no children, they gave unstinting
love and enduring life lessons to more than a dozen adoring nieces and nephews.
In 1993, Roe and Edna moved to "The Terraces" in Los Gatos where they took
charge of the library, planted a bountiful-balcony-based garden, and became
esteemed community members. Roe is survived by his younger brothers Dan and
George and a host of admiring nieces, nephews, neighbors, and friends. A younger
brother Jon died in 1992 who will be remembered as an All-American football
player at UC Berkeley 1948-1950 and an All-Pro and the first middle linebacker
in National Football League history when he played for the NY Giants. Roe was a
gifted and generous man who took himself lightly and possessed an incomparably
blithe and inspiring spirit. Although he will be sorely missed by everyone who
knew him, it is comforting to know that after soldiering on for 7 months without
her, he has been reunited with Edna. The family will hold a memorial celebration
at The Terraces, 800 Blossom Hill Road, in Los Gatos on Monday, February 22,
2010 at 1:00 pm. Friends and family wishing to honor his memory are invited to
make contributions to University of California Berkeley.
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