My journey ends here...
BAKER John Newton (Jasper)
Date of birth : circa 1891, Flat Lick, Kentucky.
Date of death : September 17, 1951, Knox, Kentucky.
Portrait :
Story
His parents were named S.N.Baker, born in Texas and Susie Efferson, born in Kentucky (
).
He owned a few apartments in Kentucky, ran by his mother.
In California he headed a game concession on the beach (dice, bingo, carnival games) and owned a private hotel in Venice. That's where Della Monroe settled with her daughter Gladys. JAsper asked Della to run the property while he dealt with the gaming room on the beach.
Jasper fell in love with the pretty and attractove Gladys who was only aged 14.
She loved him at first sight too, as long as being attached to him meant to be far from Charles Grainger, the boyfriend of her mother, Della Monroe.
May 17th 1917 : Gladys married John Newton Baker; Della Monroe declared that her daughter was aged 18 (actually she was only 15), under the pretext that there wasn't any proof about her daughter real birth date
(
).
Della, smiley, attended to the wedding then gave to the young grooms the room located at Westminster Street, and quickly moved in Charles Grainger bungalow.
At the beginning of her wedding, Gladys was a happy young married woman (
).
November 10th 1917 : birth of Robert Kermit Baker (called Jack).
July 30th 1919 : birth of Berniece Inez Gladys.
On the birth certificate (
), the Bakers wrote down Della Monroe address (1410 Coral Canal Court).
If the fact that Gladys had been pregnant during her wedding which had happened before the legal age would have been discovered, Jasper would have risked a trial for statutory rape.
With Della address mentionned as her own, this meant Della's agreement, or at least that she presented herself as responsible for Gladys and her children.
Her father's death, the emotional fickleness of her mother didn't compel Gladys to stability.
She didn't seem to look for a conformist home.
Quickly tired of motherhood and its demands, she preferred confide her children to her neighbours so she could go to balls and parties on the beach.
On his side, her husband worked during long hours as salesman.
June 20th 1921 : Gladys asked the divorce for "extreme cruelty and ectreme mental cruelty (...)" :
,
;
.
1921 or March 1922 : she left the marital home and rented a bungalow at 46 Rose Avenue, Venice, she shared with her mother.
End of June 1922 : the last rent-check hadn't been mailed. Then, there was an argument between Gladys and Della, blaming each other to waste the money. Because both of them hadn't any job, the main part of their income was given by Charles Grainger, the other part consisting of a small amount sent by Jasper Baker.
Their short room-mates experience ended in July, after an eviction threat.
Della, with Grainger's permission, went to live in an empty bungalow he owned in Hawthorn (working-class suburb, now the Los Angeles International Airport).
May 11th 1923 : the divorce was pronounced and Gladys obtained the care of her children (
).One day, Jasper came to pick the children for the week-end; in fact, he brought them in Flat Lick, Kentucky, at his own mother's house, thinking that the children would be better raised. So he settled at his mother's home, where he wanted to begin a more quiet life. Robert was sent to the hospital in Louisville, because he hitched from his injured leg; he was trapped in a cast.
Durant his stay at the hospital, Gladys arrived in Flat Lick, angry and wanting to demand her children.She saw Jasper's sister, Myrtle, to ask her help, so that she could take Bernice and Robert, but this one refused to help her and rushed to Jasper's house to warn him about Gladys purposes.
Jasper and his mother hid Berniece and asked Gladys not to go to Louisville to see Robert. Jasper had warned the doctors not to let Gladys bring the little boy. However, she settled in Louisville and found a job as a housekeeper, waiting for Robert to be better.
While Gladys was in Louisville, John remarried Maggie Hunter Mills, 13 years older than him, who headed a grocery in Flat Lick.
The couple settled in Harlan.
Bored of waiting and because she hadn't see her children, lastly Gladys went back to Los Angeles.
Jasper regularly travelled through the State to Louisville to keep a watch on Robert health condition.
The doctors diagnosed a bone tuberculosis.
After 2 years, Robert condition grew better but he kept a leg shorter than the other. However, the treatment had to continue.
Robert alternated his sporadic stays between Harlan and the examinations in Louisville. He wore a large bandage on his leg which had to be changed often.
Jasper took his family to live in Middlesboro and Robert went back home, where he would stay (Jasper made Robert go out of the hospital against the doctors opinion).
The health condition of Robert made worse and his kidneys couldn't bear the infection; he died on August 16th 1933, aged 16.
After he went back to Kentucky, Jasper passed an exam and obtained a teacher certificate; but the jobs he had didn't last much. Then he ran a rented house company in Wallsend. Then there were some water-flood which destoyed the family house.
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