Howard H. Baker Sr.
Howard Henry Baker Sr. (1902-1964) was an attorney and politician who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1951 to 1964.
Early Life
Baker was born in Somerset, Ky. in 1902 to James Francis Baker (1864-1924) and Helen Blanche Keen (1869-1944).
Baker’s father was also an attorney and a newspaper publisher. He moved to Huntsville in Scott County and established a law office in about 1909, when Howard Baker was just a child.
Baker’s mother was the daughter of Union Army Maj. A.T. Keen, who was part of a scouting party through Scott County in 1863. It was Keen who helped convince Gen. Ambrose Burnside to move his massive army through Scott County as he marched to Knoxville to liberate East Tennessee from the grips of the Confederacy.
Howard Baker was one of four children: Helen Keen (1894-1904), James Washington (1898-1983) and William Doisy (1906-1983) were his siblings.
The family moved to Knoxville, Tenn. in 1919, and Baker enrolled at the University of Tennessee that same year. He graduated in 1922, and graduated law school in 1924, after which he returned to Huntsville to become a partner in his father’s law practice.
Family
Baker married Dora Ann Ladd of Oliver Springs, Tenn. in 1924. She was the daughter of Chris Ladd and Lillie Ladd, both of whom served as sheriff in Roane County, Tenn. Lillie Ladd was the first woman sheriff in Tennessee’s history.
The couple’s first son, Howard Henry Baker Jr., was born in 1925. A daughter, Mary Elizabeth, was born in 1931.
Dora Ladd Baker died of peritonitis in 1934, when Howard Henry was only eight and Mary was only three. Lillie Ladd moved from Oliver Springs to Huntsville to take care of the children. The following year, Baker remarried to Irene Bailey, a native of Sevierville, Tenn. who was active in state politics. They later had a daughter, Beverly Irene.
Professional Life
In addition to working as an attorney at Baker Law Office, Baker published a weekly newspaper. He was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1928, and to the Scott County Board of Education in 1931. He was named district attorney general of the 19th Judicial District in 1934 and served in that capacity until 1938.
Baker ran for governor in 1938, winning the Republican primary but losing the general election to Democrat Prentice Cooper. Two years later, in 1940, he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, losing to Democrat Kenneth McKellar.
Baker was named a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1940, 1948, 1952 and 1956.
Baker served as Vice President and general counsel of the Oneida & Western (O&W) Railroad, and on the board of directors of First National Bank of Oneida.
Congress
Baker was elected to Congress in the 1950 election, representing Tennessee’s 2nd District. He was re-elected six times, and served until Jan. 7, 1964, when he died.
Baker was one of only a few Congressmen from the South who did not sign the 1956 Southern Manifesto that opposed desegregation of public schools that had been ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education. He voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 and the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Baker’s widow, Irene, finished out his term in Congress. She did not seek election and was succeeded by another native Scott Countian, John J. Duncan Sr.
Death
Baker died at Fort Sanders Presbyterian Hospital in Knoxville, Tenn. on Jan. 7, 1964 after suffering a heart attack. He was 61, and his death came five days before his 62nd birthday. He was interred at Sherwood Memorial Gardens in Alcoa, Tenn.
Legacy
Baker Highway through Scott County (S.R. 63 from its western terminus at U.S. Highway 27 in Huntsville to Interstate 75 at Caryville in Campbell County) is named in Baker’s honor. Also, the Baker Watershed Lake in Oneida, which serves as Oneida Water & Wastewater’s primary source of drinking water, is named for him.