Baker, Valera Burck (1912-2006)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2006 Feb 20 p. 8

Birth date: 1912 Jan 30

text of obituary:

VALERA BAKER

Valera Baker, 94, of Albany, Ore., died Feb. 1, 2006, at Mennonite Village Nursing Home. She was born Jan. 30, 1912, to Harley and Katie (Widmer) Burck, longtime residents of Linn County.

She married Robert Baker on Aug. 10, 1933, and they celebrated 64 years of marriage.

They moved to Goshen, Ind., in 1963 to serve the church through Mennonite Mutual Aid while she worked at Goshen College and Greencroft Retirement Center. In 1974, they retired and moved to California, where they traveled as MMA representatives. They moved to Mennonite Village in Albany in 1976, where they continued to serve in health care.

Survivors include three daughters, Marilyn Lehman and her husband, Louie, of Roseburg, Sharon Swartzendruber and her husband, Ed, of Morton, Ill., and Roberta Christner and her husband, Don, of Roseburg; a son, Michael of Albany; three sisters, Grace Anderson of Albany, Lois Detwiler of Monroe, Wis., and Evelyn Fisher of Phoenix, Ariz.; a brother, Willis Burck of Albany; five grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

Funeral services were held at Lebanon Mennonite Church. Burial was in Twin Oaks Memorial Gardens & Mausoleum in Albany.