As a young man, Robert Baker turned down a scholarship to Julliard at his parents’ request.
It was his one regret in life.
An avid singer who actively participated in the choir at Atlanta’s Capitol View United Methodist Church, Mr. Baker loved music, particularly Christian songs such as “The Old Rugged Cross” and “In the Garden.”
In recent years, Mr. Baker was unable to sing publicly because of diminished lung capacity, but would sit in the den with Hazel Baker, his wife of 67 years, and croon directly to her.
“He always told the story that he was sitting on the steps of Georgia State University one afternoon and a girl in a yellow dress came walking down the sidewalk. He saw her and decided that was the girl for him, and they’ve been a love story ever since,” said Angee Baker-McAfee, the oldest daughter among eight children in the Baker family.
Mr. Baker, a native Atlantan, died April 30 of complications from pulmonary fibrosis and congestive heart failure. He was 92.
Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. Tuesday at Sandy Springs United Methodist Church with interment to follow at Arlington Memorial Park.
Mr. Baker’s devotion to his wife was so profound that in recent months, after attending physical therapy sessions several times a week, he only wanted to return home to be with her.
Mrs. Baker suffers from advanced Alzheimer’s and, said Ms. Baker-McAfee, her parents were in side-by-side hospital beds in their Sandy Springs home holding hands when her father passed.
“Mom doesn’t really speak anymore, but as he was passing, she said, clear as day, ‘That’s my man,’” Ms. Baker-McAfee said.
Mr. Baker served as a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II, and after returning from duty, established the Metropolitan Express Company, an Atlanta trucking business.
Though he owned and ran the company, it wasn’t unusual for workers to see “Pops,” as they called him, driving the truck to the docks to pick up shipments. Mr. Baker continued to work into his 80s.
“He would have still been driving in his 90s if my mother hadn’t gotten sick,” Ms. Baker-McAfee said, calling her father a “real doer.”
Mr. Baker was also known for hiring workers with troubled pasts or prison records.
“He believed in giving men a second chance,” his daughter said.
Additional survivors include sons Robert Head Baker Jr., Phillip G. Baker, Mark Timothy Baker and James Lee Baker; daughters Katherine Victoria Zezima and Margaret Elizabeth Chandler.
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