In Memory-2000

In Memory......2000

R. Marie Baker
May 22, 1908 --------------April 23, 2000

Ruth Marie Baker was born in Auburn, Indiana, on May 22, 1908 to LeRoy and Luie Baker. She grew up in southern Indiana. A brother tragically drowned in a lake at the age of sixteen, on the day that Marie graduated from Manchester College in North Manchester, Indiana. She also had a sister, Irma, younger by three years. After teaching for one year, Marie did social work, investigating applicants for relief. She then attended and graduated from National College in Kansas City, and was consecrated a deaconess in 1942. Her work took her to New Jersey, Ohio, California and Maryland.

Marie spent most of her retirement years in California to be near her sister. She also lived with a nephew, Gary Hamman, in Anchorage, Alaska for a period of time before entering the Cummings Health Unit at Brooks-Howell Home on April 4, 1996. Surviving is her sister, Irma Hamman. Burial was in the family plot in Auburn, Indiana, and a memorial service was held at Brooks-Howell on May 2. Memorials may be made to Brooks-Howell Home.

Cleo Barber
September 13, 1906-------------- January 10, 2000

Cleo was number six of seven children in a family that grew cotton until the boll weevil ate the cash crop. Her Alabama family moved to Langdale, Alabama, and then to Birmingham soon after she graduated from high school. A year as a high school teacher convinced her that she should change careers. Education included a BA from Athens College in 1930, and a Master’s Degree in Religious Education from Scarritt College in 1935. She was commissioned as a deaconess in June 1935. In 1953 she received a Master’s in Social Work from Western Reserve.

Her appointments as a deaconess were as leader of children and youth, Wesley House, Atlanta, Georgia; Head Resident, Wesley House, Nashville, Tennessee; Director, Kingdom House, St. Louis, Missouri; Program Director, Wesley House, Louisville, Kentucky; Director, Religious Education, Boston Avenue Methodist Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma; Program Director, Marcy Center, Chicago, Illinois; Program Director, Toberman Settlement, San Pedro, California; Executive Director, Tampa United Methodist Centers, Tampa, Florida. Honors included the naming of a building for her that she had planned and saw to completion at Rosa Valdez Center. She also received the Tom Dooley Brotherhood Award given in Tampa, Florida by the St. Patrick Day Association, Tampa.

Moving to Brooks-Howell in 1992 did not mean "retirement" for Cleo. She organized the Art Club, continued taking ballroom dance lessons, and was always looking for ways to improve the quality of life for others. Cleo had packed her suitcase ready for her annual January trip to Florida, when she became ill and was admitted to the hospital, where she died on January 10. Surviving are several nieces and nephews. She was a member of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church. Family requests that memorial gifts be made to Brooks-Howell Home.

To the Top of this Page

Doris Jean De Graff

September 10, 1923----------------------November 20, 2000

Doris’ family consisted of two sisters and loving parents. She was influenced early in life by her grandfather, a Methodist minister, and by a Sunday School teacher. At age fifteen she gave her life to God during a revival service at the local Congregational Church, which she later joined.

After high school graduation, she had no money to continue her education, so for the next year she worked as a seamstress, a skill that she used throughout her life. She graduated from Chicago Evangelistic Institute in 1947 and became a Parish Worker in Dilles, Ohio, a coal mining community. She attended National College for Christian Workers and graduated in 1951. The following year she was commissioned a Deaconess.

Doris served God as she worked primarily in churches and community centers in Kansas Conference; Dilles, Ohio; Saginaw, Michigan; Rockford, Illinois; Grand Rapids, Michigan; and Baltimore, Maryland. All age groups were included in her ministry. Each was different and rewarding. A nostalgic assignment was as Director of Resident Services at Clark Home in Grand Rapids. Her grandfather had been administrator of the home from 1910 to1913.

Doris retired in 1986 and returned to Grand Rapids, where she continued to work part time and did volunteer work. In 1992 she entered Brooks-Howell. She had enjoyed living a life of service and love for people of all ages in all walks of life and with a variety of needs. At Brooks-Howell Home she sought ways to continue meeting needs of others through sewing, newspaper deliveries, pushing wheel chairs, and in other ways.

Doris was a member of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church. One sister, Mrs. Betsy Ernst of Nunica, Michigan, survives her. A memorial service was held for her in Michigan and burial was in a family plot in Fruitport, Michigan. A memorial service was held at Brooks-Howell on December 1, 2000.

To the Top of this Page

Roxie Ann Eaton
July 18,1925..........................August 26, 2000

Attendance at the Methodist Church was a normal part of Eaton family life in Welch, West Virginia. Ann’s father died when she was ten years old, leaving her mother, a registered nurse, with two boys and two girls to raise. From her early years until she died Ann loved her church and treasured family ties. She graduated from Concord College in 1947, with a BA in Elementary Education. In 1953 she graduated from Marshall College with a MA in Elementary Education. She taught public school in West Virginia for seventeen years.

Music was an important part of Ann’s life. She enjoyed singing and playing the piano. She was active in the local, district and conference levels of Wesleyan Service Guild. At a meeting, Deaconess Frieda Morris encouraged those present to consider going into Christian service. Ann responded with a two-year commitment, which grew into a lifetime one.

Ann found her "niche" in Christian service when she went to work for the Woman’s Division in 1962. Her first position was as a Field Worker through WSG in 1962. In the mid-sixties her second position was as Staff Assigned to Region in San Francisco, serving seven conferences in the Western Jurisdiction. In the late 60's she moved back to New York with responsibilities for mission education, including Schools of Christian Mission. Ann’s enthusiasm, energy, and love for her work inspired United Methodist Women.

Retirement began in 1991. Ann continued to live in New York until she came to Brooks-Howell in 1996. She was a member of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Asheville. Surviving are one sister, Alice Weatherford of Princeton, West Virginia; two brothers, Herbert Eaton of Huntington, West Virginia and James Eaton of Waynesville, North Carolina; an aunt, Mabel Lucas of Fairfax, Virginia; and numerous nephews and nieces.

To the Top of this Page

E. Arthur Russell
November 26, 1914..................March 20, 2000

Arthur was born in southern Iowa into a family of several ministers of the Evangelical Church. His personal walk with God began in his teens when he was converted under his father’s ministry. He answered God’s call to ministry while at John Fletcher College, where he received a BA in 1936. Additional training was at Drake Theological Seminary, Garrett Theological Seminary, United Theological Seminary, and a Master’s degree from Winona Lake School of Theology.

Art pastored three churches in Iowa in his first ten years of ministry. His second church was where his father had pastored. Twenty-two years were with the Red Bird Mission in Kentucky under the Evangelical United Brethren Church, where he was a circuit-riding preacher in early years. He served for ten years in the United Methodist Church, Louisville Conference. He and his wife, Esther, had a unique ecumenical ministry, including outreach to street people, the disabled, the jail, and presenting a "Sermon in Clay" to bless countless people in at least twenty denominations and many civic groups. After fifteen active retirement years in the Cherokee National Forest in Tennessee, Art and Esther moved into Brooks-Howell Home, May 5, 1992. He continued in active retirement with a joyful servant/s heart, enjoying gardening and pottery, and always ready for a new adventure.

Survivors include Esther, his wife of sixty-three years, a son, David Russell, and two daughters, Margaret Cleaver and Rebecca Cutshall, seven grandchildren and three great grandchildren. He was a member of the Kentucky Conference and was active at Christ United Methodist Church. Memorial gifts may be made to Red Bird Mission, Brooks-Howell Home, or New directions Ministry.

To Arthur

A man from outer space?
His suit and helmet are on.
He walks with deliberate step.
Oh . . . he’s off to tend the bees.

A man of Earth
Working with clay
Skillfully throwing it on the wheel!
Preaching, too, garbed in a potter’s apron.

Preaching, too,
Clothed in a black cape and hat,
Saddle bags, Bible and hymnal.
The horse that carries him takes on a new dignity and grace,
Reflecting the spirit of him, the Circuit Rider.

His voice is vibrant and true as he sings, "When I Can Read My Title Clear."
Teaching today’s Methodists their heritage in true Wesley tradition:
Caring for the whole person
Teaching nutrition
Sharing health products
Concerned about the condition of mind, body and soul.

The Gospel!
He lives and preaches winsomely.
"I’d like what he has," they say.
Pacesetter and pioneer--at home whether mansion, cabin, mountain or prairie.
As respectful to the transient of the deteriorating city street as he is to his bishop.
"The sun shines on the just and the unjust."

Our Heavenly Father is no respecter of persons, "Be perfect like that."
The blessed man of Psalm 1 and the self-controlled man of St. James.
No unkind word ever passes through his lips.

Gazer of stars and the heavens,
Feeder of birds near the kitchen window,
Hikers through the woods while communing with his Lord.
Bible study by the wood-burning stove,
A volley ball game with a gang of kids,
Or teaching a grandson to arch with a new bow and arrow.
Versatile - dependable - a part of the solution.
He makes his mistakes, he forgets, he blames himself, but he goes on.

Forty-two years in the ministry
His tenderness at weddings
His sensitivity at funerals
His creativity in the pulpit.
He worked on the messenger as he did the message.

"He taught us to love," said one.
"I feel closer to God," said another.
Born on Thanksgiving Day in the midst of death, one frail baby spared
To be a man of DESTINY. . . .

--Written by his wife Esther, 1978

To the Top of this Page

Eugenia M. Savage
February 1, 1906.......................August 1, 2000

A Christian family with three older brothers, very special parents and the Methodist Church was the setting which helped guide young Eugenia into Christian work. It was at Epworth League Institute when she was fourteen years old that she felt God’s call to full time Christian service.

Music was a life long interest and vocation from age nine, when she began piano lessons. At Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, where her father was Bursar for many years, she earned a B.A. degree in 1927 and later at the University of Southern California, a Bachelor of Music degree. She attended missionary training school in San Francisco, worked a year at a community center in Portland, and then was commissioned under the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society. She sailed for China in November 1931. She taught piano and small pump organ as part of her responsibilities at Hwa Nan Women’s College in Foochow. She thoroughly enjoyed fellowship with the highly-trained Chinese faculty and the missionary community.

In 1944 she came home on a second furlough, but due to her mother’s passing remained to make a home for her father in southern California near family. After her father’s death in 1958 she attended Scarritt College for a refresher year, then went to Singapore. This assignment at Trinity Theological College was teaching the music she loved. Miss Savage lived in San Diego for eight years following retirement in 1970.

She entered Brooks-Howell in 1988 and continued to share her musical talents with most appreciative audiences. She was a member of Central United Methodist Church. Miss Savage’s "I Remember" story about her experience in helping to move the girls’ school as the Communist army advanced.]

To the Top of this Page

To the "In Memory 2001" Page

Return to the Brooks-Howell Home Home Page