Charles Fuller Baker

My grandmother Leighton's family, the Bakers, produced some fascinating overachievers.  One was her brother, Charles Fuller Baker.   He was a botanist, agronomist, and collector, amassing a collection of 300,000 mostly tropical insects.  He also catalogued thousands of plants.  He spent time in Cuba, Brazil and finally the Philippines.  In 1918 he became the Dean of the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture, a position he held until he died in 1927 at age 55.

Shortly afterwards,  a packet of letters and photographs was sent to my grandmother, who was a favorite of his.   Here are a few of the pictures with the little I know about them.   They show a climate quite different from his roots in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin.

This shows lush jungle with tree covered with bromeliad plants.

This is the outsides of his Philippine home.

This is Charles at his desk in May of 1927.

I don't know whose plant collection was - his probably - but it looks like a dandy.   He seemed an extreme example of the obsession with plants that afflicts many of his relatives, including my sisters and I.

This is the his library.

Scientific order was mixed with well-ventillated bamboo construction.

The walls are swali (woven bamboo) construction.