California Biographies 

Source:
History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California
by: C M Gidney - Santa Barbara. Benjamin Brooks - San Luis Obispo. 
Edwin M Sheridan - Ventura
Volumes II - Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, ILL., 1917

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


WILBER W. BAKER. The Baker family has been identified with Ventura County since 1892. As a 
family they have improved and developed some of the fine lands around Bardsdale and 
Fillmore, and a high degree of material success has attended the careers of the individuals of 
the same.
The founder of the family here was the late W. J. Baker, who was born in Westmoreland 
County, Pennsylvania, was reared and educated there, took up farming, and in 1870 moved out 
to Schuyler County, Illinois. He continued his vocation as a farmer in the prairie state until 1892, 
and in that year came to Ventura County. His first purchase was twenty acres in Bardsdale, and 
that he developed as an apricot orchard. After selling out he retired to Los Angeles, and lived in 
that city until 1912, when, on a visit to Illinois, he passed away at the home of E. S. Baker. He 
was a democratic voter and a member of the Lutheran Church. In his native county of 
Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, he married Mary Stairs, and they became the parents of twelve 
children, seven of whom are now living.
Mr. Wilber Baker, one of the children, was born in Schuyler County, Illinois, December 17, 
1874, and was eighteen years of age when he came to California. All his education was 
acquired in the public schools of his native county. When the family came to California he 
applied himself to such work as was found on his father's ranch for three years, and after that 
found employment in varying capacities and on different farms in Ventura County. For the past 
ten years he has been an independent farmer and fruit grower. He began in 1906 with the 
purchase of ten acres in Bardsdale, added another ten acres in 1907, ten acres in 1908, and his 
last purchase of ten acres was in 1909. These forty acres are now developed throughout as a 
walnut grove, the rows being intersected with beans, which have furnished the many crops. Mr. 
Baker is a prominent member of the Santa Paula Walnut Growers Association. He is a democrat 
in political belief and a member of the Presbyterian Church.
In Bardsdale February 5, 1896, he married Miss Nellie Cummings. They have four children, of 
whom they are very proud. Harley, aged nineteen, is attending high school at Fillmore. Russell, 
aged seventeen, has completed his high school course and is now farming the twenty-five- acre 
ranch of Mr. and Mrs. D. M. Cummings. Evelina and Theodore, the latter nine years of age, are 
both in school, the former in high school and the latter in the grammar school.