Margaret Miller Baker

Margaret Miller Baker was a teacher, author and poet. Her favorite art form was the short story and she enjoyed crafting stories of strong women drawn from her own experiences in life. In 1977, her book of short stories, Four Plucked from the Orchard, was published by Lanthorne Press. Her poetry also draws from her varied life experiences and the reader is drawn to the emotional content of her subjects through skilled rhythm, meter and rhyme. She didn’t write out of a desire to make money, but purely for the pleasure of working out a good short story or expressing life’s difficulties and pleasures within a poem.

My name is Juliana Sandahl and I am honoring my mother because of her tragic death in 2001, when she was murdered by her caregiver’s ex-boyfriend in a domestic violence altercation at the age of 83.  I feel especially compelled to let the community know about the many gifts she shared with others throughout her life.

Portland State University was a special part of my mother’s life, so I feel it is quite appropriate that she be honored here at this university. She loved the school, had tremendous respect for her professors and took numerous literature courses. She began college in her middle age when I was in high school. I remember that she would work hours in the evening writing her college class papers. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Education in 1967 and at the age of 49 began teaching high school English at Marshfield High School in Coos Bay, Oregon. Although she was valedictorian of her high school class in 1935, she was unable to further her education at that time due to her family’s financial situation during the Great Depression when they lost their once prosperous farm in Eugene and moved to Drain. After high school she moved to Portland where she worked as a nursemaid for a well-known Portland family and for five years sent money home to her struggling family. She married in 1940, raising three of her own children as well as four step-children from her second marriage.

After her death I published a book of her short stories and poems titled, Fly, Fly They Must.  Also I have published her memoirs, Memoirs and Writings, Margaret Miller Baker. She wrote a series of children’s stories for her granddaughter that have been compiled into a book called, Cycle Kitty Stories. 

She was an extraordinary woman not only because of her talent in writing and teaching but because in spite of the many difficulties she faced in her own life—poverty, divorce, burn victim, caring for her spouse with Alzheimer’s, and ultimately loosing her vision and mobility due to a stroke—she always maintained a love of learning and strove to help others in her community. After leaving her full-time teacher’s position at Marshfield High School, she taught home-bound students—students who were too injured and incapacitated to attend school. Later she tutored English as Second Language students at Mt. Hood Community College.

Margaret Baker was a mentor to so many of her friends and students. She was a prolific writer of letters and corresponded with many family members and friends including a wide correspondence with people in her 1918 Club, a club for people born in 1918. She cared deeply for people and always extended a helping hand to those in need.

The word heroine embodies the qualities of leadership, strength, courage and bravery. My remarkable mother had all these attributes and I am grateful she left us with a wealth of memories in her stories and poems.

Honoring my mother, Margaret Miller Baker