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-i9-i* PTl•DBy Eleanore Bailey JohnsonTHE STORE FACES STATE STREET, and so does the family home only a few steps away. Over the counters of the store, fot three generations, goods of all kinds have been sold. On the long front porch of the pleasant, white house which has been ; home for the Baker family even longer than the store has been in existence, are quaint ribbed benches where one may sit 1 ot a summer's evening and watch the comings and goings of the neighbors in the village ot I1 razeysburg ... one of the most charming and up-to-date hamlets in the Muskingum Valley.The fine, old gentleman who'*'•lt;*travels the few yards between t house and store with the regularity of a pendulum on a clock.morning, noon and night, loves •§tuem both ... his home, histritore.’He and his family AND t h estore, are all so much a part of Frazeysburg that the youngestchild or the oldest resident couldn't imagine the community without them.The man is Jerome W. Baker, who is 90 years young! The store is one of the oldest general stores in Muskingum county. The home is the same one to which he -brought his bride, after their marriage 56 years ago. She was Missfor 72 years, 62 at its present, location, corft.*this March.THE STORY“I was born in Frazeysburg,'’ u her 13. 1855'Dresden, near le ssid, “Decem-Mv father wasWilliam Baker who had come to Ohio from New Jersey and settled in Dresden where he had a farm and a hardware store. I was the youngest of five children. My father was a just andi upright man of whom it was i said he had never taken advan* j tage of any of his fellow men j and who was admired and re-j spected by all who knew him. j He died when he was only 58 iBessieMendenhall, daughter of; years °Jcl-• prominent retired farmer of \ the county, and he saw her for! the first time when she came: with her mother to the gate to; buy some calico, from the travel- iMy boyhood one of a lad on awas the usual farm, busv withchores, and getting an education.I went to the public schools in Adams Mills and Dresden andilkg huckster wagon which he! clerked for awhile for Herbert j drove to supply customers in I Smallwood in Dresden, about a: three counties ... the wagon • year or so, and then for three; which was the beginning of his i years clerked for I. W. Ewing, j long career as a merchant . . . U liked merchandising and wait-j the forerunner of the general! mg on people, and kept my eyesjstore. Mrs. Baker has passed her eightieth birthday.Before I begin the story which he told me himself, one rainy day ■ few weeks ago. I want to say that both of them are so alert and able, that only their own verification made me believe they were not each of them 10 years younger. He is the first person ia the .store of a morning and the last to leave at night and Mrs. Baker is still as happy and contented, bustling about her wcll-and ears open and pretty soon had enough money from my savings to invest m a small businessof my own in Frazeysburg. This was in 1872 and 1 was just 17 years old!'*“'Did you have fun, when you were a young man, Mr. Baker? Did you go to country dances; and picnics and have lots Of girls, or hobbies of any kind?‘'Wei],” he said slowly, “I had a nice enough time, but WORk i was mv hobby. I never danced, jMr. and Mrs. Jerome W. Baker, a portrait study taken by the Mueller studio in Newark, on Mr. Baker’s 90th birthdav, December 13, 1945.
Newspaper Details
Coshocton News
Coshocton, Ohio, US
Sun, Jan 27, 1946
Page 2
Full Page
Clipped by
Muskingum C.
OH, USA 02 Feb 2020
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