Maureen Baker

Mary Grace (Maureen) Baker (nee Moloney) passed away peacefully in her sleep early in the morning of November 2nd, 2020 in Middletown RI, bidding a graceful farewell to a life well lived. A longtime resident of Cambridge MA, Maureen was born in 1932 in West Roxbury, MA to T Alfred and Margaret Moloney, both from County Clare in Ireland. She went on to earn a four-year teaching degree from Boston State Teachers College, venturing to California for her first year of teaching in 1955-56. During that year in Long Beach, Maureen met and married James (Jim) Baker of Virginia, MN, who remained her loving husband and loyal supporter for the next 64 years. It was as a teacher that Maureen left her greatest mark on the world. After settling with Jim in Cambridge, Maureen taught for over 50 years, 42 of them as a kindergarten teacher at Buckingham Browne & Nichols in Cambridge. She ran her classroom with warmth and a firm hand, bringing quiet and order to a rambunctious classroom with a soft voice and sharing her love of reading and poetry with generations. A parent of seven children herself, she was revered by the parents of the children she taught, adored by the children themselves, and admired by fellow teachers. Maureen was a staunch believer that you should give back to the communities that enriched your life, which, as a lifelong Red Sox fan, meant never turning off the radio broadcast of a game until it was won or lost. She loved the Boston Symphony, the Cambridge Shakespeare Society, the Boston Athenaeum, the Saturday Morning Club and the Mothers Discussion Group in equal measure, contributing time, energy and endless supplies of home baked cookies to their cause. She will be missed deeply by her husband, Jim Baker, also living in Middletown RI, and by her 7 children and their spouses: TJ and Eva Baker, Emily and John Black, Paul Baker, Christopher and Nancy Baker, Amy Baker and Skip Pile, Annie Baker Atwood, George Atwood and Nathaniel and Heidi Baker, as well as by her 9 living grandchildren. She is predeceased by her parents, her siblings Marguerite Stewart and John Moloney, her nephew Matthew Stewart, and her grandson Nicholas Atwood. The family expresses its gratitude to the John Clarke Nursing Center in Middletown RI for their care of Maureen in her last years, and is choosing to hold a Celebration of Life at a later date. In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation in Maureen’s name to the Alzheimer’s Association at www.alz.org.