Ruth’s father, Fred Baker, was  born in 1886 on a farm in northern Illinois.  As a young man he went to work at a factory in Chicago. 

In 1912 Frank Dago, a friend from Port Oneida, Michigan, "coaxed him to come up,"  saying, "You'd love it up here."  "Probably the city didn't seem like a very friendly place" to him, explains Ruth of her farm-raised father.  Fred immediately fell in love with Port Oneida.

When Port Oneida farmer Minor Kelderhouse hanged himself from a beam in his barn, his widow Bertha put the farm up for sale.  Mr. Baker soon purchased the property and brought his Chicago-raised bride to the Port Oneida countryside.

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