Gloria J. Baker

IN REMEMBRANCE …

By Joyce Baker, the Daughter who loved her Mama very much …

Born Gloria Jean Taylor on July 17, 1928 in Detroit, Michigan, Gloria was just 6 years old when her mother drove her, and her older brother Graley, from Michigan to San Diego, CA where she would grow up being raised by a single mother and make lifelong friends both at school and at church. When she graduated high school, she flew to Washington State to attend Whitworth College in Spokane, where she was active in the Drill Team. She then moved to Seattle and rented an apartment overlooking Lake Union with her College roommates. She found work as a waitress at Mannings on 4th Avenue where she would eventually meet her future husband, Don Baker. He worked just down the street as a checker for Safeway and would often tell us, “She had nice ankles!”

After just 6 months of dating, she accepted Don’s proposal of marriage and they were married 6 months after that, on August 22nd, 1948. Gloria had always had a love for horses so they spent their Honeymoon at a Dude Ranch in Penticton, Canada. They had such a good time they went back and stayed again for their first anniversary, each time taking pictures and recording their stays in photo albums with her commentary.

After that, while Don started building their first home on Mercer Island, Gloria became pregnant and gave birth to their first child, a son they named Daniel James, born June 7, 1951. She called him Danny boy after one of her favorite songs and even named a star after him. No matter where she was in the world, on a clear night she could always find his star and so can I. Three years later Gloria gave birth to me, their 2nd child, on April 26, 1954 and they named me Joyce Diane.

With their family now complete, Don and Glory would often take us kids camping on long road trips to places like Yosemite, the Redwoods, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, and several times to Disneyland while visiting her mother in California. We took family ski trips each year to Canada and Sun Valley, with Gloria the one always planning fun things to do as a family. She loved adventure and being outdoors.

After 18 years as a homemaker and volunteering once a week at Children’s Hospital, Gloria would go to work at the business Don had built up over the years and where he was now leasing warehouse space on Denny and Stewart in downtown Seattle. Both me and my brother Dan worked there as well, it being our first job when we each turned 16 and worked there after school each day.

With us kids now graduated and off on our own pursuits, Don and Glory would finally sell the business and end up buying a little restaurant on Capitol Hill called the Broadway Coffee Shop, which they successfully ran for the next 13 years until Don retired.

Being younger than Don, Gloria found she was not ready to retire and decided to volunteer at Group Health Hospital on Capitol Hill twice a week. She remained volunteering there for the next 25 years, racking up almost 10,000 hours of volunteer work and becoming a part of the Group Health family.

< Place IMAGE Here (Centered) >

Gloria at Group Health Volunteer Desk

Gloria and Don would take many trips together in their later years, to Europe three times and just renting a car to drive up the countryside with no reservations or place to stay, instead finding out of the way Bed & Breakfast Inns to stay the nights and often visiting castles. Gloria was adventurous that way.

For their 50th Anniversay, Don surprised her with plane tickets to Fiji, New Zealand and Australia, where they visited native villages in each country and had lunch on a glass bottom boat while sailing over the Great Barrier Reef.

Gloria also liked to take off in their motorhome and they traveled to Alaska, all across Canada and the USA several times, often stopping to visit with distant relatives along the way and always having an adventure or two to tell when they returned home.

We are so lucky to have known Gloria and been loved by her as a wife, a mother and as a Grandmother, with enough memories to keep her alive in our hearts forever.

…. She is her own star now and watching over us all ….

~ . ~