[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 106 (Friday, July 31, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9611-S9612]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           VIRGINIA S. BAKER

 Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to pay special 
tribute to a special lady who passed away Wednesday July 30, 1998 in 
Baltimore, Maryland. Virginia S. Baker was special to me, my family and 
the entire city of Baltimore.
  Virginia Baker started as a volunteer playground monitor in 
Baltimore, where she brought joy and fun to the city's streets and 
neighborhoods. But more importantly, she always kept an eagle eye out 
for the children with a broken heart or the ones from a broken home. 
Without notice she would find a way to bring those children into her 
circle of compassion, to let them know they always had a home at her 
recreation center. She had the special gift of mending children's 
hearts.
  She came to serve in the recreation departments of nine Baltimore 
Mayors and always made sure children had a safe place to play. When I 
was a City Councilwoman I became friendly with Virginia because she was 
always hustling the City Council for more money. She took me to the 
playgrounds and community events, got me to play hopscotch, and got me 
leapfrogging over the bureaucracy to ensure strong community programs 
for the city of Baltimore. Virginia was also friends with my dear 
mother. My mother volunteered for me for several years when I served on 
the Baltimore City Council. When my schedule wouldn't allow me to tour 
the city streets, Virginia would take Pearl, her assistant, and my 
mother out to visit the senior centers and community playgrounds. They 
would never forget to stop at Faidley's for a crabcake, Greektown for a 
few stuffed grape leaves, or countless other diners and snack shops 
where Baltimoreans gathered.
  Virginia Baker was just a special person. She had a God-given gift of 
compassion and caring and used it selflessly. Today, I have humbly 
tried to express my personal experience with Virginia and her gift. I 
also request the Baltimore Sun article on Virginia's life be printed in 
the record. It really expresses Virginia's effect on Baltimore and its 
citizens best.
  The article follows:

                [From the Baltimore Sun, July 31, 1998]

    City's Queen of Fun Dies at 76--Virginia Baker Ran Recreational 
                               Activities

                          (By Rafael Alvarez)

       Baltimore's oldest kid has died at the age of 76.
       Virginia S. Baker--who began her career in fun and games as 
     an East Baltimore playground monitor in 1940 and hopscotched 
     her way up to City Hall in the silly-hat regime of William 
     Donald Schaefer--died yesterday at St. Joseph Medical Center 
     of complications from pneumonia.
       ``I've made a lot of kids happy,'' she said in a 1995 
     interview. ``That's what I get paid for.''
       Never married, Miss Baker counted generations of Baltimore 
     youngsters as her own special brood.
       Her secret?
       The girl who grew up as ``Queenie'' in her father's 
     confectionary at Belnord Avenue and Monument Street--where 
     she honed her child-like playfulness and steely resolve--
     never stopped thinking like a kid.
       In a century that whittled an American child's idea of a 
     good time down to pushing buttons on plastic gadgets, Miss 
     Baker championed timeless fun: hog-calling contests, frog-
     jumping races, turtle derbies, sack races, beanbag tosses, 
     peanut shucking and doll shows.
       ``And don't forget her annual Elvis salute,'' said Sue 
     McCardell, Miss Baker's longtime assistant in the Department 
     of Recreation and Parks. ``We'll keep going with all the 
     things Virginia started.''
       Bob Wall, a recreation programmer in Patterson Park--where 
     the rec center is named in Miss Baker's honor--first met his 
     mentor as an 11-year-old Little Leaguer in 1968.
       ``It was a Saturday and our game was rained out and we were 
     walking past the rec center in our uniforms. I'd never been 
     inside it before,'' Mr. Wall remembered. ``This boisterous 
     lady yelled out to us: `You boys want to catch frogs for me 
     today?''
       Of course they did. And that was Mr. Wall's initiation into 
     a world he unexpectedly found himself eulogizing yesterday 
     when the city's 58th annual doll show--launched by Miss Baker 
     at the start of her career--coincided with her death.
       ``We had a moment of silence,'' said Mr. Wall. ``And then 
     we said the show's got to go on.''

[[Page S9612]]

       The Virginia Baker show started in 1921. Her father was a 
     Czech immigrant who changed the family name from Pecinka to 
     Baker. Her mother, Hattie, was a Baltimorean of 
     Czechoslovakian descent.
       ``Daddy mixed the syrup for the sodas and milkshakes and 
     Mama cooked the chocolate for the sundaes,'' she said of the 
     family store, now a carryout restaurant and liquor store 
     protected by iron bars and bulletproof plastic. ``Boy, did 
     this neighborhood smell good!''
       Miss Baker had a voice so quintessentially Baltimore that 
     Washington disc jockeys regularly put her on the radio just 
     to let the nation's power brokers believe everything they'd 
     ever heard about this city.
       On the sidewalks of her beloved hometown, young Virginia 
     learned the tricks she would turn into a career.
       ``We played every game you can imagine out here,'' she said 
     during a 1995 visit to the old store that was her home from 
     infancy until her father died in 1954.
       Miss Baker rode scooters, shot marbles, made kites out of 
     newspapers and sticks, played tag, spun tops, and made yo-yos 
     sing and puppets dance. She collected matchbook covers and 
     wagered hundreds of them at a time in card games of pitch, 
     poker and pinochle down at Sprock's Garage on Lakewood 
     Avenue.
       And when she got black eyes from roughhousing--Queenie was 
     a bruiser, she freely admitted--the local butcher put beef on 
     them to keep down the swelling.
       As a youngster, Miss Baker became a volunteer at the old 
     Patterson Park recreation center. After graduating from 
     Eastern High School in 1940, she made play her work, soon 
     becoming director of recreation for the park.
       From that time, she served nine Baltimore mayors, from 
     Howard W. Jackson to Kurt L. Schmoke. She became best known 
     during the 15-year tenure of Mr. Schaefer, who installed her 
     at City Hall as perhaps the only civil servant in America in 
     charge of an office called Adventures in Fun.
       Miss Baker turned City Hall Plaza into a staging area for 
     endless contests--marbles, pogo sticks, chess, checkers, 
     Hula-Hoops, yo-yos, roller skates, bicycles, kites and tops.
       She invented the Fun Wagon, a small trailer with a 
     basketball hoop on back and stuffed with toys. Five of them 
     toured the city. She started the Kid Swap Shop, where 
     children traded toys, an event copied across the nation 
     because of Miss Baker's knack for publicity.
       ``She was a great old girl,'' Mr. Schaefer said yesterday. 
     ``She initiated all sorts of hokey things and everybody loved 
     them. I hog-called one year. I didn't have my own frog for 
     the jumping contest, but she gave me one. He didn't win. But 
     Virginia always had young people around her. She made them 
     work hard and feel good.''
       For six decades, her motto never changed: ``A kid is still 
     a kid.''
       Miss Baker lived at the Marylander Apartments from 1954 
     until a stroke in 1992. She did not officially retire until 
     1995. She resided in recent years at a Towson nursing home 
     and is survived by several nieces and nephews.
       Services will be held a 10 a.m. Saturday at Church of the 
     Nativity, Cedarcroft and York roads.
       Donations may be made to the Virginia S. Baker Recreation 
     Memorial Fund, c/o Friends of Patterson Park, 27 S. Patterson 
     Park Ave., Baltimore 21231.

                          ____________________