Homer E. Baker
Robert Baker|, Jean Baker Noel, Peggy Baker Martin, Homer Baker and Betty Baker Stevens
|Courtesy of Mary Muller]]
Born: c. 1914
Died: April 17, 1997
Married: Agnes L. Burns
Children: Michael
[[1]]|: Homer E. Baker "Bake", 21 Academv Street; President Students' Association (I); Council (2); Secretary of Class (3); Canaras (3); Editor-in-Chief 4); Red and White (2, 3); Feature Editor (4); Business Manager Boomerang (3); Cast (3); Business Manager, Under Twenty (4); Stage Manager, Believe Me, Xantippe (2); Band (1, 2, 3); Varsity Club (4); Fire Squad (3, 4); Basketball Manager (4); Dance Committees (1.2, 3); Our Book (1); Speaking Contest (2, 3); State Band Contest (2, 3).]]Homer E. Baker was a [War II veteran]. He was a son of Homer and Elizabeth Baker.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, September 29, 1953
Mrs. Elizabeth Baker, of 21 Academy st., received word that her son, Cpl. Homer E. Baker, had arrived safely at his overseas destination and was stationed some where in India.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, February 16, 1965
Homer E. Baker, a native of Saranac Lake, and former state editor of The Watertown Daily Times, has been promoted to cable editor of The Buffalo Evening News where he has been employed since 1953. He also has been city editor of the Herkimer Evening Telegram and telegraph editor of the Utica Daily Press. He and his wife, the former Agnes L. Burns of Watertown, live at 246 Dushane Road, Kenmore with their son Michael, 18.
The Buffalo News, April 19, 1997
Homer Edward Baker, general features editor at The Buffalo Evening News, dies at 81
Homer Edward Baker, 81, retired general features editor of The Buffalo Evening News, died Thursday (April 17, 1997) at his son's home in Kenmore. He had been ill since September.
The veteran journalist, whose passion for travel took him around the world, retired from The News in 1980 after 41 years in the newspaper business. He was editor for The News of such major stories as the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Bill Murray, a retired features editor and wine columnist for The News, was a close friend and colleague of Baker's. "Homer's friendly way of looking at life flooded over into the many stories we handled on The News features pages,"Murray said.
He always shared his many years of expertise and warm feelings with all of us who worked with him. He had a relaxed out-look with everyone — even under trying situations."
A tall man with smiling eyes and a ready sense of humor, Baker was born in Saranac Lake — with newspaper ink already in his veins: His paternal grandfather, Henry Baker, had been co-publisher of the Potsdam Courier Freeman.
Baker went to Cornell University, receiving his bachelor of arts degree in 1937. It was at Cornell that. he discovered his thirst for travel — spending part of his senior year as a mess boy on a freighter on the Mediterranean and Black seas.
"Nothing fancy," he often quipped, recalling the adventure that led to a lifetime of travel, much of it in Europe.
He and his wife, Agnes, always rented a car and set out on their own, eschewing conducted tours.
Baker joined the Watertown Daily Times as a general assignment reporter in 1939.
His career was interrupted three years later, when he became a staff sergeant with the Army Signal Intelligence Service.
He was assigned to a monitoring station in New Delhi where he decoded radio traffic between the Japanese war department and Japanese forces in China and Southeast Asia. He received a Bronze Star for his work in intelligence.
He joined The Buffalo Evening News as a copy editor in 1953, soon becoming The News assistant cable editor, selecting and shaping domestic and international news stories.
Baker was promoted to cable editor in 1965 — and also served as editor of The News old Saturday weekend edition before being named general features editor in 1969.
Baker was a member of the American Newspaper Guild. He also served, from 1955 to 1961 as an editorial adviser to the Spectrum, the University at Buffalo student newspaper.
A resident of the Kenmore Town of Tonawanda area since coming to Western New York in 1953, he belonged to Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church, Kenmore.
Survivors besides his wife of, 55 years, the former Agnes L. Burns, include a son, Michael; two sisters, Jean Noel of Ellenburg and Margaret Martin of Rochester; and a step grandchild.
Services will be held at 9 a.m. Tuesday in Lester Wedekindt Funeral Home, 3290 Delaware Ave., Kenmore, followed by a Mass of Christian Burial at 9:30 in Blessed Sacrament Church, 263 Claremont Ave., Town of Tonawanda. Burial will be in Acacia Park Cemetery, Pendleton.
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