In Memoriam: 1930s

Notices sorted by graduation date

Lillian Hicock Wentworth (Grad ’38) of Braintree, Mass., died March 2, 2014. She began her career as a teacher working at the Hillside School in Connecticut, and then taught political science for five years at Mississippi State College for Women in Columbus, Miss. She and her family moved around the country, living in Vermont, Tennessee, Kansas, New York and settling for a while in Illinois, where Ms. Wentworth taught English and American history at Auburn High School. In 1961, she began a long career at Thayer Academy in Braintree, first as a teacher, then as head librarian. Ms. Wentworth researched and wrote Thayer Academy—One Hundred Years for the school’s centennial in 1977-78, and the resulting work became the foundation for the Thayer archives. Following retirement in 1978, she worked part time as Thayer’s director of publications and public relations, and after a second retirement in 1987, served as a volunteer head archivist for the school. Survivors include a daughter, a son, three grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews.

Hollis M. Baker (Col ’39) of Grand Rapids, Mich., died April 19, 2014. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. At the University, he was a member of Zeta Psi fraternity. Mr. Baker was the retired CEO of Baker Furniture Co., a high-end residential furniture manufacturing business that his father founded in 1890. An avid sailor all his life, Mr. Baker participated in the Chicago-Mackinac sailboat race more than 20 times, and enjoyed sailing his small-scale, three-masted, square-rigged barquentine, the HMS Dolphin. He loved building model trains and restored a small passenger train from the Boyne City Railroad with an English steam engine he found in London. A man of many interests and a great sense of humor, Mr. Baker researched, collected and renovated medieval castles in England, France and Italy; he wrote a book, Five Castles Are Enough, about his castle collecting, and later purchased two more castles. He was an active member of many clubs throughout the U.S. and Europe, among them the Macatawa Bay Yacht Club, the Kent Country Club and the Sandpipers. Mr. Baker and his family spent winters skiing at Boyne Mountain in northern Michigan, where he built a tiny ski chalet. Survivors include his wife, two daughters, three grandchildren and four stepchildren.