Jane Baker

Jane Lorraine Clark Baker, age 71, passed away on Monday, October 31, 2022, at Autumn Care Nursing Home.

Born in Parkersburg, West Virginia, she was the daughter of the late Strother Wallace and Lorraine McKinney Clark.  In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her sister, Betty Clark Tonkin.

Jane was an educator, a counselor, and a musician who loved both sacred and folk music. Selected to go to Governor’s School in high school to study music, she returned with an acoustic guitar and toured after college with the group Koinonia.

Jane received her Bachelors of Psychology and Masters of Education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After a decade of work as a counselor she moved to Atlanta, GA to start a family. In 1986 the Bakers moved to Waynesville, NC to raise their three children. Jane taught psychology at Haywood Community College before serving for 16 years as the Director of Children’s Ministries at FUMC Waynesville.  Her career was marked by children’s advocacy and community engagement, passions which she continued to pursue long after her retirement. In recent years she also enjoyed playing piano and passing along her love of music and reading to her beloved grandchildren.  Her family is grateful for the incredible community of compassionate, intelligent souls with whom she always surrounded herself, a village she lovingly curated that helped raise and support them throughout their lives as well as hers.

Jane is survived by two sons, Dr. William Baker, and his wife, Dr. Anna Baker, of Winston-Salem and Dan Wally Lang, and his wife, Julia Lang, of New Orleans, Louisiana; her daughter, Sarah Jane Blackburn, and her husband, Matthew, of Waynesville; nieces, Jennifer Tonkin Bowman (Josh) and Katie Tonkin (Nick), of Annapolis, Maryland; Margaret Monroe (Thomas) of Rock Hill, SC; Rachel Fox (Eddy) of Atlanta, GA; nephew John Walsh (Aiken, SC); her nine beloved grandchildren, Harvey, Winston, and Byron Baker; Oliver and Azalea Jane Lang; Alyssa, Harmony, Georgia, and Clay Blackburn; and their grandfather, Fred Baker.

Memorial services will be held at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, November 6, 2022, in the Sanctuary at First United Methodist Church of Waynesville.  The family will receive friends following the service in the Christian Growth Center.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Pigeon Community Multicultural Development Center, P.O. Box 1494, Waynesville, NC 28786.

The care of Ms. Baker has been entrusted to Wells Funeral Home of Waynesville and an online memorial register is available at "Obituaries" at www.wellsfuneralhome.com