Friday, October 30, 2009

Two Lines Left Their Points of Origin......And Their Intersection Was Deadly



The Franklin and Marshall College Campus served as the point of intersection for the lines that reperesent the lives of Marian Louise Baker and Edward Lester Gibbs.
Had Marion not been employed there, and had J. Lester and Florence Gibbs not demanded that their only child, son Eddie attend college, they never would have encountered each other.


The photos of the F & M campus show it's beauty from the past. It remains a beautiful campus today.
Steeped in authentic history, it's been the locus of learning of those who have gone into the world to create and generate impact and progress.

Marian Baker loved F & M. She was much more that "just a secretary". Marian was loved and very well thought of. That is precisely why no one even thought of checking the financial records or books when she was reported missing. There was never a question as to her honesty.

Edward Lester Gibbs had been a big fish in a small pond at Pitman High in New Jersey. He had excelled in most sports and was well known and well thought of. His family name was well known and his once uncle had been the Mayor of Pitman. That ended with the 1953 election. I do not for a fact whether his term limits prevented him from running again, whether he ran and lost or given the conviction and execution of his nephew, he decided to avoid the public limelight.


Marian graduated from Penn Manor, having taken the Commercial Course. She was hired shortly after graduation by Hamilton Watch Company, in the cafeteria. By a stroke of good luck, at the time, she was notified of a job opening at Franklin and Marshall College. There was no doubt as to her suitability for any job. She was meticulous, she was a hard worker, a pleasant and respectful and respectable young lady and conscientious beyond measure. She loved her job, she loved the college and she was in the midst of one of the happiest periods in her life. She became engaged at Christmas of 1949 to Edgar Rankin and looked forward to married life.



Marian Baker didn't have a promiscuous day in her life.
She was able to smile and appear to be rather comfortable with others, yet she may have been quite shy on the inside. She smiled easily and was an attractive young woman.
Jealous females who couldn't understand "the draw" of Marian made snide remarks and innuendoes. That practice goes on today, in great numbers and with far more insult included to anyone who the masses don't quite understand.

Marian's easy smile and friendliness, coupled with her lack of promiscuity made her the topic of comments and conversation. In addition to the jealous females, who clearly didn't know Marian at all, the men who got nowhere with Marian added fuel to the fire. The old fashioned, is it really?, practice of claiming to have gotten farther with a female than the facts would support was an insult to Marian.
The salacious claims would have gone down in history unspoken and unknown to all had Marian not been murdered in 1950.
Marian was popular with the college administration and officials. They recognized her loyalty to the school and her class. She was chosen to judge an advertising poster contest of Alpha Delta Sigma on the campus, in early 1949. She joined the ranks of Nancy Stonesifer, the Assistant Professor's wife who also worked with Marian in the Treasurer's Office and Max Hannum, the Assistant to the Dean. Alpha Delta Sigma was the national advertising fraternity. I have been told that Ed Gibbs was a member of Alpha Delta Sigma, being a Business major. Is this where he first met Marian. We know that he knew her from his visits to the Treasurer's Office. But that could have been the setting of Ed's first spying Marian, the beautiful young lady.

Marian participated in the college that she loved so dearly. I have wondered about Marian's later life. Would she have left the college to have children and raise them? Or would she hold the college so dear to her heart and stay on campus and grow and become even more a thread in the fabric of F & M?

The photograph of Marian that hung in the Bursar's Office in East Hall on the campus is of great interest to me and to others very close to Marian. I am in the process of finding out what happened to that photograph.
Did it hang there until the demolition? Was it placed in college storage? I'm anxiously awaiting answers to those questions.
Marian's photograph needs to be rehung. Or a commissioned painting of her needs to replace it.
Her heart belonged to F & M and she would be honored to be remembered there.

What an opposing view of humanity you get when you compare Marian Louise Baker to Edward Lester Gibbs.
There is NO comparison.
Gibbs had his demons. His mother's instability, his father's ineffectual stance.
Overprotected and spoiled, Ed was denied the very tools of development he needed to face life as a functioning adult. But he knew his own shortcomings. He bailed on help at the Guidance Center at F & M.
He needed to stand up to J. Lester and Florence and tell them that as a married adult man he was dropping out of college and getting a job. That was all he needed to do.
His parents needed to allow a separate human being the right to choose how he lived his life.
I hold no pity for Gibbs. I can understand the parts of the horror picture that became his life, but I don't excuse it.
A lack of courage killed Marian Baker.
Gibbs' parents lack of courage in allowing their son to make his own choices and perhaps not live up to the family name.....
Ed's lack of courage in taking a stand and doing what he needed to do. He wasn't going to graduate. He needed to blurt it out, hand his mother a handkerchief and take his lumps.
The Gibbs family in it's entirety is responsible for Marian's murder.
Ed wielded the lug wrench but his parents were sitting on his shoulder.
Societal position and appearance were more important to them than their son's happiness.
I can't imagine the relief Ed would have felt if at Christmas of 1949, when he did indeed tell his mother that there was a chance he'd not graduate, his mother would have shed a few tears and dealt with it.
Instead, her show of histrionics fed Ed's pathological desire to please. So he told her he was just kidding.
Christmas 1949....
Marian is filled with joy and happiness as she becomes engaged to Edgar Rankin.
Ed Gibbs is filled with dark frustration and rage.
And on January 10, 1950 Marian Baker paid the price for the sins of the Gibbs family.
Sad and horrible in its own right.
Now add to that a sloppily written book, by a largely absent author, tossing innuendo and scandal onto the memory of Marian Baker, where it surely didn't belong.
Gehman victimized Marian all over again.
And to this day, those that knew her and love her still just can't cotton to that.
It's never set well. It doesn't today.



3 comments:

Joie said...

I've been trying desperately to contact someone, anyone about this murder. You see, my mother is the last living juror in this case. I am fifty-three and have just read "Murder in Paradise" for the second time. This is a story that absolutely fascinates me. The murder is now in year sixty. And with the Roseboro murder still in light, it brings back memories for my mother. I have tried to contact Lancaster New Era to do a story, but they won't because (although my mother will talk to them) my mother will not expose her name.
While I was in my twenties, I could not accept the fact that she could send someone to the electric chair. After all she is my mother. Now that I am fifty-three, I feel differently. I feel that what she did was the right thing to do, however I would not be able to do it.
My mother has kept all newspaper articles pertaining to the trial. She also has the letters of praise. Unfortunately, the letters of condemnation have been tossed by my father trying to protect her ease-of-mind.
About a year ago, I went on-line to find the book, "Murder in Paradise." Somehow I was diverted to a chat room. It seems there is a "cult" out there. Someone from Denver claims that Edward Gibbs did not murder Marian. She claims her father did. Interesting. I have been trying to connect back to that chat room. Anyway, contact me.

BeachGirl said...

Joie,
Please email me at PAGirlAtTheBeach@aol or s.weik@mchsi.com with a way to reach you. I am very interested in speaking with you and your mother.

BeachGirl said...

Joie,
I was hoping to have a comment from you by now. I have no way to reach you, without an email addy or other contact info. Please email me at PAGirlAtTheBeach@aol.com and we can arrange to speak with one another.
Thanks, Suze