Robert Baker

Madison - Robert S. Baker, of Madison, died on May 10, 2015, in the cardiac intensive care unit at UW Hospital.

Robert Samuel Baker was born on January 11, 1940, in St. Catharines, Ontario, the son of Frances V. (Sanders) and William R. Baker. He had no siblings. Bob grew up in a working-class neighborhood in St. Catharines, where he attended the public schools and in his later teenage years served in the Canadian Army National Reserve on weekends. He left high school before graduating to join the Royal Canadian Air Force. While in the air force, he was stationed in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and trained as an electrician. He then returned to St. Catharines, worked as a border guard at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagra Falls, Ontario, and completed his high school credits through the Ontario Department of Educational Correspondence Courses.

In 1963 Bob was admitted as an adult special student to the University of Western Ontario, from which he received a B.A. with honors in English and philosophy in 1967 and an M.A. in English in 1969. He completed his graduate studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, receiving his Ph.D. in 1972. That same year he began his thirty-year career as a professor in the department of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he taught courses in nineteenth- and twentieth-century British literature, both fiction and poetry. Bob enjoyed the classroom and received two teaching awards, including the Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1981. His early scholarship on Victorian novelists, particularly George Meredith, was followed by two books on Aldous Huxley and a six-volume collection of Huxley's essays, which Bob co-edited with James Sexton.

Bob retired, with emeritus status, in 2003. Up until his final illness, he continued to derive much intellectual pleasure from reading literary fiction. He also enjoyed reading European military and political history, following national and international politics, attending chamber music concerts, interacting with the family pets, and visiting London, England, as often as possible. London was his favorite place. While there he liked to walk for hours and visit museums, especially the National Gallery and the British Museum. Bob would wish to be remembered above all for his talent in evoking laughter with his quick wit and quirky sense of humor.

When he moved to the U.S., Bob was accompanied by Linda Anne Patch, his first wife, with whom he lived from 1968 to 1977. He and Mary J. Mekemson were married in 1983, and their daughter Elizabeth was born in 1990. Bob is survived by Mary and Elizabeth, three brothers-in-law, and other family members.

"[G]ladly would he learn and gladly teach."

Cress Funeral and Cremation Service
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Madison, WI 53705
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