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I wrote this as Jesse
told me to. I'm his wife Virginia
Jesse's life as he
remembers it.
I can remember back
years ago when I was a youngster - a Colored lady helped to deliver my
sister Bertie. I
remember she kissed the bottom of her feet. I believe the Dr. was Dr.
Hornback and when my
younger brother was born, a friend of ours Mrs. Biggs helped to deliver
(Skeet) whose real name was Jack. We were a big family, 10 girls and 3 boys.
Our house burned when I
was 5. We had to live across the street to the South in a 3 room shack. We
were a large family, 8
at home at the time. We lived there while we got another house built. The
old house burnt from a
kerosene lamp near a window that caught the curtins on fire. The old house
was bought with a down
payment being a gold watch that my dad found in the bottom of a train car
where they hauled coal.
I keep thinking my dad gave $900.00 for the property there on the corner
of E. Cherry and N.
Alma. I believe the payments were 3 or 4 dollars a month. He bought the
property when my mom
and dad and two oldest sisters Delores and Nell came back from Levenworth
where they had been
living. My parents had lived in Nevada prior to that. Thirteen kids in all
- Delores, Nell, Ruby,
Alta, Jim, Helen, Pat, Margaret, Margie (twins), Mildred, Me, Bertie and
Skeet.
My mom's name was
Bertha Rachel Love Baker. My dad's name was James Otis Baker. Their
property laid South and
West of Katy Allen Lake. which my dad helped dig for water for the
trains.
There was a pump house.
I believe the first people who lived there were named Price, and
latera family named
Graham. The pump house pumped water from the lake for the steam engines.
There
used to be Medicine
Shows where the 54 livestock sale barn is now. There used to be boxing
matches back in the
30's at Camp Clark on highway 71 South. There was a station and a
grocery
store across to the
West of Camp Clark.
My dad had an old Chevy
years ago. I don't remember him driving it. He later had a Model T Ford.
He was in an accident
which done $2.50 worth of damage to the car he hit. I don't remember him
driving any more after
that. In 1939 you could buy a long base, ton and 1/2 Ford truck for
$900.00 new. My brother
Jim purchased one. I drove it at age nine, and I smoked. I swore a lot
when I was a kid. I rolled my own cigarettes when I was 7 years old. I got my
first carton of ciggs at Christmas from an older sister and her husband Bus when I was
10 or 11 years old. I remember my 4th grade teacher's
name was Rokie Moorse.
I would spit tobacco juice in my inkwell bottle on my desk. I was chewing
tobacco at 7 or 8 years
old.
I can remember when
there were 4 filling stations on the old 54 highway that were in about a
block
and a half. The highway
is now Subway Blvd. A Skelly, a Phillips, a Fina, and a Shepley station.
There were grocery
stores, Bill Sheets, Sullivans, Frank Peak, later a Vickers was in where
the
Sullivans had been.
Later the Joe Carols and Belts Grocery and Winnie Reed. There was a
Chat &
Chew Cafe (also a beer
joint). seven filling stations, Tony Urner, Dan Todd's station, Hudson Oil
Co.
There was a large dairy
barn and the Blue Bird Cabins on Austin. Bungalow Inn Tourist Court which
was also known as a
whore house. I remember when there was 3 moonshine stills here on east
Walnut
Street.
I had Opal Campbell in
5th grade. Mrs. Yoakum taught me to tap dance. I spent 2 years in the 5th
grade. In the 6th grade
we had boys from ages 16 to 21 years old. I can remember the old ice plant
was located on N. Cedar
St. but they used to cut ice off the Katy Allen Lake and haul it by horse
and wagon to the
old Vanderford Creamery and Produce to keep the produce cold. This
was stored in a building and was used in summer months to keep stuff cold.
There were no street lights and only dirt streets. No city water. No electricity in east Nevada
when I was 6. I think I was about 11 when we got natural gas. The city water came
when I was a teenager. My mom didn't have city water in her
home till I was about
22. We had a well where we got our water up to that time. It was good
water and real cold
when drawn up with a rope in a bucket. My mom washed on a washboard and
tubs for years. She
didn't get a wringer washer until about 1936 or 1937. Mom had been using a
gasoline washer by
Matag. It had a roller you turned by hand. She used two rinse tubs. My mom
never lived to have an
automatic washer. She made her own soap for laundry made from fat and lye.
She cooked on a wood
cook stove. She baked bread every week to last for the family. She had her
first kerosene cook
stove about 1934 which it burnt in the fire in 1935. She had bought it
from Homer Ellis' dad.
My 5th grade teacher's
name was Mary Dale. She was nice. My 1st grade teacher was Madlyn
Pryor. She later
married Andrew Wight. I was always telling my mom what pretty clothes Mrs.
Pryor wore. She was a
tiny and dainty woman. Gene Shull lived by Jefferson School to the South.
He raised turkeys
there. He sold them to Vanderfords Produce. They were butchered there. The
first ice delivered in
Nevada was on a wagon drawn by a horse. The small creek and bridge below
our place became the
Baker Bridge and is still called that to this day. My two oldest
sisters had 2 children each. One died from T.B. and the other from
childbirth. We kept our two nephews at our house quite
a bit. Their mom was
Delores Rogers. The boys were Bob and Don Rogers. They were older than
me. Their dad was a
nice guy. I believe Mom kept Nell's two children too, a boy and a girl.
The boy later died. The
girl left and we don't know where she is. Her name is Joy. We saw her last
in 1960. Bob Rogers is
still living. He and his wife live in Wichita Kansas. Don and Carol Rogers
live in Salem, Oregon.
I used to go hunting a
lot. I would come home with lots of rabbits, and had enought to give to
our
neighbors, and still
have plenty for ourselves. Everyone was poor then. I was quite young when
I
used to go to a junk
yard type place over South from our house. I would reach my arm throught
the fence and get
pieces of iron metal to sell to get money for flour or lard and stuff for
my mom to make bread.
One day I snuk over to get more, and I guess someone who worked there had
seen me getting the
stuff, and he had raised the fence and put bigger pieces of iron and metal
close to the fence so I
could reach it. Then I would go sell it at the junk yard to get more
money. I guess the fella felt sorry for me. We were poor but happy. There's more to
my life, but I'll stop here.
Note from
Virginia:
Jesse and I met in front of the apt. building where I lived with my dad, stepmom, step brother & half sister. I got a job washing dishes at Pop and Mom's Cafe. It used to be in the middle of where the highway is now, close to where Ramey's Grocery store is now. I washed dishes and got $10 a week. I only worked there for a short time after I met Jesse. I was 16 and he was 20. We dated about two weeks and my dad let me marry Jesse. We stayed at Jesse's mom's place for a while. He made me quit my job. He worked at McKay Lumber. He took care of us. I loved him so much-and do to this day. I was proud to be a Baker-and later had a lovely family of 6 kids. People and places in east Nevada as Jesse remembers. Henry
Cramer Ramsey Copeland Van Scott Paul Miller Ray Stewart Fuller Construction Co. (where he took the iron to sell) Jim Baker Riley (on corner of Alma and Cherrry) N. Landers Roy Wright McShaneys (west of Baker Bridge) Garlands Richards (N. Alma) Ramsey's Motel St. Highway Dept. Dale Shumate Fish Shop Browns Facina Nelson Sheets Store & Junk Yard Choran's Bluebird Cabins McCoys Sphores Toney Urner Station Hattie Vicker's Belt's Dairy Conoco Station Sawmill Chat & Chew Don Lightner warehouses Kelley |
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Jesse Ray
Baker, Sr.
Oct 20, 2010 Obituary
Jesse Ray Baker,
Sr.
Jesse Ray Baker, Sr., 80, Jesse had lived
most of his life in He married
Virginia B. Irwin Baker on October 15, 1950, in
Jesse had many
friends over the years and enjoyed fishing at He was a member
of the Funeral services
will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Monday, October 25, 2010, at the Pentecostal
Assembly Church, Nevada, MO, with Pastors Dennis Engelbrecht and Shelby
Brandt officiating. Interment
will follow in Memorials may be
contributed to the Pentecostal Assembly in care of the church or Ferry
Funeral Home,
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