Individual Details

Death

Obituary of Gerald E. BAKER
A New Enterprise farmer was killed by a bull on his farm Sunday after he had gone into the bull pen to repair a water pipe.
Gerald E. BAKER, 61, died of a crushed chest and other injuries, according to S. Alton Barefoot, Bedford County coroner. His body was discovered by his wife, Ada, who had gone to the barn about 12:45 p.m. when Mr. BAKER failed to respond to her call for him to come to dinner.
According to Dale, who farms in partnership with his parents, Mr. BAKER had dragged himself under a gate and was lying outside the pen when his wife found him. She had left him about 11:20 a.m. after standing guard while he repaired a feed trough in the bull pen, the son said. He speculated that his father went back into the pen, after his mother left for the house, to nail up a water pipe that the bull had knocked loose.
The injuries indicated that Mr. BAKER may have finished nailing the pipe in place and turned to leave the pen when the bull forced him against a concrete block wall. Besides the crushed chest, the victim had bruises of the back, a gash under the chin and a bump on an eye, according to his son.
Dale BAKER said the bull, a three-year-old registered Holstein, had gone after him once and he escaped by crawling under a bunk feeder. "I had warned Dad not to go near him alone, and we always made sure there were two of un around when anyone went in the pen," he said. Mr. BAKER owned the bull for about a year, having purchased it from Russell WYLES, a son-in-law. The animal had been bred in the Byron Over herd of Roaring Spring RD.
The bull was sent to a slaughter house Monday.
Mr. BAKER had been farming on the west edge of New Enterprise for many years. In addition, he did custom hauling for Agway of Curryville since 1951.
He was born May 27, 1915, in New Enterprise, a son of Andrew P. and Fannie (Longenecker) BAKER, and married Ada M. STIFFLER on March 27, 1937, in Bedford.
Besides his wife, he is survived by five children, Richard E. and Dale A. of New Enterprise, Mrs. Carolyn Jean MAROCCI of Dudley, Mrs. Janet WYLES of Roaring Spring RD and Mrs. Darlene M. KAGARISE of Woodbury; eight grandchildren and a brother and sister, Orville of New Enterprise and Ethel BAKER of Hollidaysburg RD.
Mr. BAKER was a member of the New Enterprise Church of the Brethren, where funeral services were held at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 29, 1976, by the Rev. J. Ronald Mummert, pastor. Burial was in the New Enterprise Cemetery.
Morrisons Cove Herald 1976 Clippings - 30 September 1976
Martinsburg, Blair County, Pennsylvania