Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 17, Number 17, DeMotte, Jasper County, 21 March 1947 — Mrs. Claud Baker, Former Jasper County Resident, Succumbs [ARTICLE]

Mrs. Claud Baker, Former Jasper County Resident, Succumbs

Mrs, Ethel Ferguson Peck of Rensselaer received word yesterday of the death of her cousin. *■"4 Mrs. Claud Baker, at Kevil, Kentucky, on Wednesday, March 12. Mrs. Baker had been ill for many weeks, and was being cared for by her husband’s daughters at the -time of her death. Harriet Rose Keer Baker was horn Aug. 7, 1881, at Newtown. Indiana, the daughter of John Keer and Rose (Coen) Keer, Her mother was a daughter of John and Sarah Coen, a pioneer Jaspel County family and lifetime residents of Rensselaer. Mrs. Baker’s parents died when she was a baby, and she lived with her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. John Coen, in Rensselaer, until she was in her early twenties. - She joined the Presbyterian church in her youth and was an active’ worker in the church and a devout Christian. After her grandparents had passed away, she went to Detroit, Michigan, to study millinery, and lived with a counsin, Mrs.* Mabel Daly, where later she was married to Claud Baker. V Five cousins are her only near 'relatives that remain of her generation of a once very large and prominent family in this community. These five counsins are: Robert M. Vanatta, Marion; Mabel C. Daley, Glendale, Cal;; D. M. Ferguson, Chicago; Bessie Savler Hershman, Brook; Ethel Ferguson Peck, Rensselaer. Other relatives who once lived here were the families of J. R. Vanatta, Jolen T. Sayler and B. F. Ferguson. : *