Hunt Co., TX - Obits: Dr. W. Harrison Baker ***************************************************** This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb by: Sarah Swindell USGenWeb Archives. Copyright. All rights reserved http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ***************************************************** Dr. W. Harrison Baker Funeral services for Dr. W. Harrison Baker of Terrell, a Methodist minister for fifty-seven years, were conducted Saturday afternoon in Kavanaugh United Methodist Church by Bishop Paul Martin of Dallas and Dr. Herbert Minga, pastor of White Rock United Methodist Church in Dallas. Burial was in Forest Park Cemetery. . Dr. Baker, 83, was fatally injured in a traffic accident on Friday afternoon, June 30, 1972, on US HWY 69, north of Greenville as he was on his way to officiate a wedding. During his lengthy career in the ministry, he had officiated over 3,5000 marriages. Dr. Baker was born in Tennessee on September 18, 1888, .the son of Hiram Baker and Sarah Bowen Baker. He began his career in the ministry in 1905 at the age of seventeen. After attending Wesley College in Terrell, Allen Academy in Bryan and Southwestern University in Georgetown, he was the eighteenth student ever to enroll at Southern University, enrolling in 1915, and he is reported to have been a member of the first graduating class of that institution. On June 20, 1917, he was married to Eula McGuire of Celeste. Mrs. Baker was in the car with her husband when the fatal accident occurred and her injuries have confined her to Citizens General Hospital where she is reported in fair condition. During the early years of his ministry, Dr. Baker served churches in Lane, Salem, Floyd, Celeste, Van Alstyne, Decatur, Gainesville, and Terrell before becoming pastor of Munger Place Methodist Church in Dallas from 1929 to 1939. He transferred to Kavanaugh Methodist Church in Greenville and served as superintendent of the Greenville, Sherman, and Dallas districts of the Methodist Church before returning to Dallas in 1946 as pastor at Oak Cliff Methodist Church for four years. He retired for the first time in 1955 at the age of sixty-seven. But he returned to serve a community church in Wimberley, a congregation in Monterrey, Mexico, and a Shady Grove Methodist Church near Greenville, where he was pastor in 1967 when he and his wife celebrated their Golden Wedding anniversary. He later assumed the pastorate of the Chisholm Methodist Church in Rockwall County, the position he held at the time of his death when he was eighty-three years old. Dr. Baker was a member of the Hella Temple Shrine and the Masonic Lodge and at various times was active in all of the prominent men’s civic clubs in Greenville. (July 7, 1972, The Celeste Courier) I couldn't make out, but it appeared ministers of the Northeast Conference were honorary pallbearers. This is the partial list of pallbearers: the Rev. James Garrett, the Rev. Buist Wilson, the Rev. Michael Walker, and the Rev. Gene Welborne. Coker-Mathews-Peters was in charge of the arrangements.)