Joy Dirksen Baker

Danice Joy Dirksen Baker (1929-1993) was the wife of U.S. Sen. Howard H. Baker Jr. and a longtime resident of Huntsville. She died of cancer in 1993 at age 64.

Early Years

Born in Pekin, Ill., on Feb. 10, 1929, Danice Joy Dirksen was the daughter of Everett M. Dirksen and Louella Carver.

Her father served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1933 to 1949, representing Illinois’s 16th district. He represented Illinois in the U.S. Senate from 1951 until his death on Sept. 7, 1969 and served as Senate Minority Leader from 1959 until his death. He was best known for helping to break the Southern filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington and the Dirksen United States Courthouse in Chicago are named for him.

Joy Dirksen graduated from Mount Vernon Seminary, and had a degree in history with a minor in political science from Bradley University.

Marriage and family

In 1951, the year her father assumed his seat in the U.S. Senate, Dirksen was working for him when she met Howard H. Baker Jr. at a Capital Hill wedding. He was at that time a 26-year-old attorney, the son of Howard H. Baker Sr., who was a freshman congressman representing Tennessee’s 2nd District in the U.S. House of Representatives. The couple were married within three months.

There is a conflicting story of how Baker and Dirksen met: Mary Elizabeth Baker, Howard Baker’s sister, was crowned Miss Tennessee at the National Cherry Blossom Festival, while Joy was crowned Miss Illinois that same year. It has been written that Mary introduced the two at the Cherry Blossom Festival ball.

The Bakers had two children: Cynthia “Cissy” Baker and Darek Baker.

Professional life

Joy Baker served on the boards of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Ford’s Theatre, Bradley University, Knoxville College, Mount Vernon College and the Knoxville Symphony Society. She was also vice president of the Dirksen Congressional Center in Pekin, Ill. In 1985, she was awarded a Lincoln Medal for her work for Ford’s Theatre.

She also worked as a consultant for the U.S. State Department, redesigning U.S. embassies abroad.

Her husband was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1966 and became Minority Leader in 1977. He became the Senate Majority Leader in 1981, and served in that role until his retirement in 1984. He was President Ronald Reagan’s White House Chief of Staff from 1987 to 1988.

Struggle with alcoholism

Howard Baker was a candidate to be President Gerald Ford’s running mate in the 1976 presidential election until he revealed — with her permission — that his wife was a recovered alcoholic. That revelation came during the vetting process but was leaked to the press, and became headline news that derailed his campaign to become vice president. Ford chose Bob Dole instead.

Joy Baker, who blamed herself for her husband’s failed vice presidential campaign, attributed her struggles with alcohol to the 1969 death of her father.

“I sort of fell apart shortly after my father died and drank a whole lot,” she said. She became reclusive in Washington, and was hospitalized several times, once for eight months.

In 1975, she stopped drinking for good. She attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, though not on a regular basis.

“I wanted to be a good mom, a good wife, a good helpmate and a good housewife,” she said.

She had been sober for six months by the time of the public revelation in 1976.

Illness and death

In 1982, at the age of 53, Joy Baker was diagnosed with lung cancer. She had cancer to remove a malignant tumor from her right lung that year.

In November 1992, Baker was admitted to East Tennessee Baptist Hospital in Knoxville, Tenn., then transferred to the Mayo Clinic in January 1993. There, it was determined that the cancer was terminal and there were no further treatments to be tried. She made the decision to return to her home in Huntsville.

Baker died on Saturday, April 24, 1993, at her home, at age 64. Her husband and two children were by her side.

A funeral service was held at First Presbyterian Church in Huntsville on Tuesday, April 27, and was attended by a large number of dignitaries that included former President George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara. She was buried at Mossop Cemetery next-door to the family home.

In 1996, Howard Baker remarried to U.S. Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum of Kansas. She is the daughter of Alf Landon, who served as governor of Kansas in the 1930s and was the 1936 Republican nominee for president.