Furthur down on the page is a biographical sketch for another Baker family donated by Tom Childers. Please give them a big thank-you!.

JOHN BAKER is the senior partner in the well known firm of Baker & Childers, liverymen, who handle one of the largest business establishments of their kind in the town of Lagrande, and our subject is one of the representative business men of Union county, having wrought with manifestation of great energy and wisdom in his labors here for forty years.

Mr. Baker is the son of James and Elizabeth D. (Roland) Baker, being born in Van Buren county, Iowa, on March 28, 1838, and he was educated in the common schools at Corydon, Iowa, also spending the summer on his father's barn. It was in 1862 that he was stirred to try his fortunes in the west and accordingly in the spring of that year he fitted out the requisite conveyances and joined a large train of sixty wagons and toiled seven months to the Grande Ronde valley, experiencing no trouble with the Indians, but sufferring great deprivations and hardships on the way. His parents accompanied him and he soon took up a homestead, but afterward went to work freighting for three years then returned to the farm and the art of agriculture engrossed him for eleven years, at the expiration of which time he engaged in the lievery business and for twenty-two years he has been numbered among the leading business men of Union county and has handled a first-class livery and feed business continuously since. He has now taken as partner his son-in-law F.P. Childers, and they are now handling a fine business, having their stables supplied with good horses and tasty rigs and all the necessary equipment.

On July 17, 1860, Mr. Baker married Miss Margaret, daughter of Johnson and Ruth Gooden, the nuptials occuring in Bethlehem, Wayne county, Iowa. Five children have come to cheer the way and gladden the home: Mary A., wife of Frank P. Childers ; Etta E. wife of Winfield S. Wines, of Portland ; Clara J., wife of James L. Watson, of Lagrande ; Joseph W., married to Annie Wells of Lagrande ; Charles W., married to Bessie Lynch, of Lagrande. Mr. Baker owns in addition to what has been mentioned a good seven-room house in the city, and also some vacant property. He is highly esteemed among his fellows and is one of the capable, upright and enterprising men who have made the county of Union what it is to-day with its great prosperity and wealth.