Sunday, October 18, 2009

Down The Road


Marian Louise Baker was sent to live with her maternal aunt and uncle, the O'Donels when she was just a little girl. Her brother, Ross Dalton Baker was sent to live with another maternal aunt and uncle. So many miles separated them.
I have read and was told by those at Marian's services that her Aunt Allie and Uncle Jack were distraught and barely able to breath. Her mother, however, held up pretty well. She was the last to arrive at her murdered daughter's service and she was the first to leave.
That fact was lost on no one.
Life went on after Marian's death. It has to and it does.
In 1951 the O'Donels purchased property and continued their rural farm life. I can tell you personally, from a little girl's point of view, that there were no finer people in Conestoga.
The character of the O'Donels was without question to the community.
Marian had seen her biological father, Walter M. Baker, very infrequently in the years after her parents' separation and divorce.
Her mother, Helen Soule Baker Britcher, was remarried before Marian's death and had more children, living in the New Bloomfield area.
Helen Britcher died in 1971 in the Polyclinic Hospital, at the age of 70.
She died seventeen hours after her clothes went up in flames in a kitchen accident.



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