Mary Ann Baker

Baker, Mary Ann Mary Ann Baker passed on to eternal life on Thursday, Aug. 1, 2013. Born Mary Ann Sheets in Omaha, Nebraska on Nov. 30, 1925, she was the first daughter in a family of three sons and two daughters born to Fred and Agnes (O�Donnell) Sheets. Mary Ann was raised during the Great Depression, and like most Americans of that era, her family did not have a lot of material goods. But though money was scarce, the Sheets were a tightly knit family that was rich in love and shared experiences. Mary Ann recalled how her mother sewed most of her and her sister Margaret�s dresses as they grew up, and found attractive ways to cook the simple fare available to Depression-era families, at a time when a family could be fed for five dollars a week. After graduating from high school, Mary Ann Sheets took a job as a clerk in the large Orchard & Wilhelm furniture store in Omaha, where she often spoke over the phone to one of the workers in the company�s warehouse named Don Baker. The two liked each other�s voices and manners on the phone, and decided to meet face-to-face and try a date. However, Don was shy, and hesitated to ask her out, until Mary Ann sent him a hot water bottle with a note attached reading, �Did you get cold feet?� This led to their dating, eventual engagement, and finally their marriage in 1948, with Mary Ann wearing a beautiful wedding dress made by her mother. It was a happy union that would last for 52 years, until Don passed away in 2001. The newlyweds went on their honeymoon in a 1931 Chevy so decrepit that when Don wanted to know how fast they were driving, Mary Ann had to reel the speedometer up off the floorboard by its cable and read it off to him. When they drove at night, she wrapped a flashlight around a red sweater and aimed it rearwards to simulate a tail light. Surprisingly, the car made it to the Black Hills, where the booming of dynamite being used to carve the Presidents� heads on Mount Rushmore served as a background to their honeymoon among the forests and lakes. Once when they were sleeping in a pup tent, a large bear poked his nose inside and sniffed at their faces, causing them to lose all further interest camping. Don had been a pilot during World War Two, and after he married Mary Ann he was called back into the army to fly aircraft again in the Korean War, and afterward he made a career of Army aviation. Mary Ann thus became an army wife, which led to various adventures all over the world for the next 28 years as she accompanied her husband on his various assignments. The first of their four sons, Thomas, was born in 1950, followed by John in 1952, Robert in 1953, and Donald Jr. in 1955. Mary Ann was always a loving, devoted, full-time mother to her children and a constant support to her husband, and she was the backbone of her family for the rest of her life, always cheerful, taking both good and bad times in stride. Devoutly religious, she drew her own strength from her faith in God. The family spent a tour of duty in Hawaii where Mary Ann encountered Pacific island culture, tropical flowers, pineapple and sugar cane fields, erupting volcanoes, and, she remembered less fondly, high heat and humidity and cockroaches the size of mice. From the wet jungles of Hawaii the family was assigned to the dry desert of Ft. Bliss at El Paso, Texas, where she enjoyed the culture of Mexico just over the border. She remembered the time that Don took her and her mother to a Juarez nightclub to hear a famous singer, he thought, but on that night the club featured a stripper instead, and Don turned beet red while Mary Ann and her mother laughed. The family next traveled across the world to Ankara, Turkey, where Mary Ann and family were surrounded by the ruins of ancient civilizations, and used their Ford Zodiac sedan like a jeep to ford rivers and follow trails to remote villages and ruins, heating their food on the engine�s exhaust pipes. The return trip to America included a drive through Europe, visiting Athens, Rome, Venice, and the alpine towns and lakes of Germany. A ship from Hamburg to New York brought the Bakers back to America, and they spent the next four years at Ft. Rucker, Alabama. Don retired from the Army in 1968, and the family moved to Albuquerque, where they bought a house in the Old Town area. Don and Mary Ann lived the rest of their lives in this house, while their sons filled the driveway with antique cars, motorcycles, and even an airplane. Any visitors to the Baker house during those years also encountered Mary Ann�s pet bluejay, Clyde, who stole anything he could snatch from visitors, including lighted cigarettes, which resulted in wild chases from room to room trying to retrieve the stolen goods. Don and Mary Ann�s Christmas Eve gatherings for family and friends were an annual event for 45 years, with the house and yard decorated with hundreds of luminarias. During these decades in Albuquerque, Mary Ann welcomed daughters-in-law, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, as well as good friends of her sons whom she �adopted� as though they were her own, among them the Riggs, Nickelson, Outwater, Ward, and Terrell families. Other survivors include her son Tom and his wife Elise (Lee) and daughter Mary of Tijeras, son Don and Don�s ex-wife JoBeth Ancich Baker and their son Donnie, and JoBeth�s sister Debra Andrus and her son Justin, all of Albuquerque, Mary Ann�s son John Baker of Salt Lake City, Utah, and his ex-wife Connie Giannini and their daughters Ivy Anne Mueller and her husband Kyle and their sons Noah and Owen of Rio Rancho, and Heather Griffiths and her husband Stuart of London, England. There are also her nephews John Sheets and his wife Becca and son Joel and daughter Delsey of Belen, and Tim Sheets of Albuquerque, Mary Ann�s sister Margaret Barnett, wife of Dr. Louie Barnett of Souix Fall, SD, and their children, her sister-in-law Betty (Berry) Baker of Omaha and Betty�s son Doug Baker and his wife Mei and their son Daniel and daughter Anna, and Morgan, Douglas� daughter by a previous marriage, Betty�s son David and daughter Laura and their families, and Linda and Larry Olson, also of Omaha, Roy and Joyce Baker of Cedar Creek, MO, and Gordon Brennfoerder of Joplin, MO. Mary Ann was preceded in death by her devoted husband of more than fifty years, Donald Arthur Baker, Lt. Col (Ret.), by her son Robert Baker, by her parents Fred and Agnes Sheets of Omaha, Nebr., and by her three brothers: Robert, Paul, and the Most Reverend John R. Sheets, S.J., Auxiliary Bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana. A memorial service will be held on Thursday evening at 7:00 PM at the Daniels Family Funeral Services at 3113 Carlisle Blvd. NE, and a Funeral Mass will be said at the Immaculate Conception Church at 619 Copper Ave. NW on Friday at 10:00 AM. Interment of her ashes will follow at Mt. Calvary Cemetery at 1900 Edith Blvd. NE. To view information or leave a condolence please visit www.danielsfuneral.com Daniels Family Funeral Services 3113 Carlisle Blvd NE