Ellen Barrett Baker

Ellen Barrett Baker passed away almost precisely as she'd intended in her Uptown New Orleans home on June 18th, 2024. As requested, she was surrounded by none, but she was attended on in her latter months by a wonderful little team of neighbors, friends, and family. She died as she lived: on her own terms and according to her own highly individuated values, with a sort of standard in mind; and she didn't look back.

Ellen was born June 25, 1946, in Austin, TX, to John "Jack" Lafayette Barrett (1917-1977) and Carol Liggett Barrett (1920-1998). She adored Jack, who fought in World War II and entered government service afterward, eventually working for the State Department. The family thus moved often, and with her brother John Edward Barrett, Ellen grew up in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Peru, Mexico, and elsewhere. In this context of embassy parties and frequent relocations, Ellen developed real, enduring talents for understanding formality —social, cultural, religious, aesthetic— and being natural and easy within formal settings; learning languages and mastering accents; and making friends with anyone nearby. This last skill she turned into an art.

The Barretts eventually moved back to the US, settling in Tyler, Texas. Ellen took classes at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia but she found life hard to resist. She worked as a temp and a secretary and presumably had a lot of fun she never told her children about before meeting Roger Thomas Baker, of Houston, TX, on a blind date set up by his mother, who insisted that he meet this charming girl with such big blue eyes. They married in 1969, honeymooned in Taos, New Mexico, and lived in Marin County, California —outside of San Francisco— for a spell before moving back to Houston, and eventually, to New Orleans.

Ellen was a natural fit for New Orleans in every possible way: she loved the people, the food, the music, the traditions, the architecture, the lifestyle. She and Roger set up first on Prytania, and eventually settled at 910 Jefferson, in the shotgun-camelback that stands there today. In 1976, Ellen gave birth to a son whom she'd been told would not survive long after delivery, and didn't; in 1980, she had her son Dillard Mills Baker, and in 1983 she had her daughter Alexandra Barrett Baker. Ellen was also a natural fit for early motherhood in many ways: she loved to take the children on adventures and trips and outings of all kinds, and the 1980s were a time of visits to the zoo, Mardi Gras parades, streetcar birthday parties, and drives to Bay St. Louis. For these occasions, she would be adorned in a dress, some type of whimsical or perhaps serious jewelry and, always, always, heels, which she maintained were more comfortable than any other shoe.

Ellen was an early member of Muses, and adored the krewe, the parade, and the people who came out to see it. Over the course of her life she'd acquired an idiosyncratic range of artistic abilities: she did wonderful calligraphy; she did outstanding needlepoint; and she always had an eye for color and form (and interest in art and architectural history). In making Muses shoes, she had that rare thing: a perfect application of talents she loved to practice that lined up with something beloved by others. She was proud of her shoes, and of her rigorously moral system for handing them out: only to those she imagined were neglected by others, or by the world. She loved to surprise sullen parade-goers at the back of the crowd, pointing to them until they saw her, demanding that they get excited, rewarding them with a shoe to treasure.

Beyond her taste, Ellen was a gifted conversationalist whose attention felt special to many and whose friendship was perhaps the best gift she could give. She was not easy on everyone, but her family takes comfort in knowing how many lives she brought something lovely, vital, beautiful, fun, and funny to, often in the form of conversations with her friends. (Ellen was one of the earliest adopters of the Internet, getting online in the mid-1990s, which would have been impossible to predict from her prior interests but was somehow also utterly in character; and in any event: it gave her an ocean of new people to talk to. She usually went by some variation of the moniker "gudi2shoos").

Ellen was predeceased by her husband Roger, her parents Jack and Carol, and her baby boy "Thumper." She is survived by her brother, John (and his wife Madeline and daughter Brigitte), son Mills (and his wife Abby and children Keziah and Raines Baker), and her daughter Alex (and children James, William, and Charlie Hude, and their father Keith Hude), as well as her nieces, of whom she was deeply, deeply fond: Mary Rose Browder and Katie Baker Jennings, both of Houston, Texas.

Services will be private. To share your fond thoughts, memories, and condolences with the family, please visit the online guestbook at lakelawnmetairie.com