Herman Baker a quiet, kind and generous man

Herman Baker was the quintessential quiet American.

A fiscal agent for the U.S. Forest Service for all of his working life, his wasn’t the kind of job that garnered headlines. Neither did he have the sort of personality that craved recognition.

But by the time he died of heart failure at the age of 96 on July 6, Herman Baker had collected a group of friends that remain in awe of his mind, his stamina, his kindness and his generosity.

First, his life.

Born in Ruby, Wis., in 1904, he moved as a youngster with his parents to Potlatch, Idaho, where his father, Elmer, had found work in a mill.

As a result of a childhood infection, physicians fused Baker’s right knee, which gave him a lifetime limp. But that didn’t slow him down much.

According to his son, Paul Baker, he hunted, fished, bowled, played baseball and even basketball. As for the latter sport, Paul Baker quotes his dad as saying, “I can’t run fast, but I was a good shot.”

In fact, his son said, his father could plug the basket from what’s now the 3-point zone just about every time.

After graduating from Potlatch High, Baker attended a two-year business school in Spokane, then, in May 1934, signed on with the Forest Service in St. Maries as an assistant clerk. His salary was $1,620 per year, or about 77 cents an hour.

In those days, that was enough to take on a wife, especially if she had a good job, too. So, in 1937, he married Henrietta “Peggy” Gosney, who also worked on the old St. Joe National Forest in St. Maries.

The Bakers adopted Billie Marie, then Peggy gave birth to Paul, and the young family began the moves required for a successful Forest Service career. Those included two tours in the agency’s Missoula regional office, a Washington, D.C., assignment, then a stint in Juneau, Alaska, from 1959 to 1968.

For an outdoorsman, which Baker was all his life, that assignment was heaven, his son said. He started with a 15-foot wood boat, then graduated to an 18-footer and even got a commercial salmon license, enabling him to sell “surplus” fish to canneries and on the docks.

Following his retirement from the Forest Service’s regional headquarters in Juneau, the Bakers moved to Coeur d’Alene, where his parents had established a home.

With his wife, and later alone, he traveled the West from Mexico to Alaska in a series of motor homes. He was over 90 when he sold the last one, said his son, but he continued to drive his car until three weeks before he died.

Baker fished lakes and streams throughout North Idaho, say his friends, always accompanied by his best pal, Tess, an Australian shepherd mix.

Thirty-year neighbor Kathy Reynolds says Herman was always there when she needed a hand, “with sprinkler repairs or gardening tips. I enjoyed listening to his stories, attending the First Baptist Church with him, and going out to eat. And despite his age, he always cleaned my driveway and other neighbors’ with his snowblower.”

She describes him as an avid gardener who especially loved roses, “but he grew apples, too, and he gave me some delicious apple butter he made last summer. Can you imagine that, at age 95?”

Loretta Cummins, now of Boise but formerly a 15-year Coeur d’Alene neighbor, recalls that Baker sponsored two “walk for life” cancer benefit teams, also contributed to Habitat for Humanity and sponsored scholarships for Potlatch High School.

Joy Schmidt of Spokane, related to Baker by marriage, describes him as “truly an upbeat man, caring, loving, smart and so very interesting. If the whole world were made up of Hermans, it would be a perfect one.”

Vivian Blood of Post Falls, a friend for the past seven years, relates that one of her relatives needed a van to transport his 6-year-old son suffering from muscular dystrophy.

“The father couldn’t come up with enough money, and when Herman heard that, he just wrote him out a check for the balance. He’d never met the boy, and certainly didn’t want any publicity.”

Dr. Richard Smart of Coeur d’Alene was Baker’s dentist. “I used him as an example to my other patients on how a person can grow old and still approach life with enthusiasm. Herman helped all of us who knew him. What a great guy.”

The Rev. Jack Dowers, now retired as the First Baptist minister, says Baker was a trustee for the congregation, “and he had an excellent mind. He was extremely helpful when we had to buy additional insurance.”

Herman was quiet with his charities, but Dowers learned that he paid for orthodontics for one of his neighbors who couldn’t afford an appliance.

“And he was at peace with God, too. When his wife was dying of cancer 10 years ago, he told me, ‘We have had so many good years together. We’ve been truly blessed.’

“I’ve known two saints in my life,” says Dowers. “One of them was Herman Baker.”