| Sources |
- [S926] Find-A-Grave, (www.findagrave.com).
Edna Belle Tate Baer
Memorial
Photos
Flowers
Edit
Share
Learn about sponsoring this memorial...
Birth: Oct. 31, 1932
Casper
Natrona County
Wyoming, USA
Death: Mar. 12, 2013
San Diego
San Diego County
California, USA
(Published in Amarillo Globe-News, March 31, 2013)
Edna "Ahna" Baer, 80, of San Diego, Calif. died, March 12, 2013.
A spring celebration of life service in Amarillo will be announced on her Facebook wall and via the Universalist-Unitarian Fellowship.
Edna "Ahna" Baer was a 56-year resident of Amarillo. She was married 55 years to Edgar "Eddie" Max Baer of Amarillo, until his death in 2006. Edna Belle Tate was born Oct. 31, 1932, in Casper, Wyo., to Hilary Tate and Augusta Depperman. She graduated in 1951 from Denver North High School, where she was a member of the Valkyrie pep squad. She remained that bouncy and outgoing woman throughout her life until she was hospitalized in March 2012. She was diagnosed with renal cancer in October.
Before moving to San Diego in 2008, she and her late husband managed their family business, Amarillo Landscape & Sprinkler Inc, "Creators of a Greener Golden Spread." She ran the front office. Her late husband Ed handled the field operations until retiring in 2004.
Their corporate installations and private residential landscapes include Northwest Texas Hospital, St. Anthony's Hospital, Dr. Malouf Abraham, Phillips Petroleum, Bivins Memorial, The Shores, Amarillo Garden Center, Discovery Center, Don Harrington Estate, as well as area ranches, parks, public schools and banks. Ahna was well-known for her beautiful traffic-stopping front yard, which made the cover of the Amarillo Globe-News several times.
Ahna was a progressive and unique woman who lived in the conservative Texas Panhandle. Her husband joked that she always cancelled out his vote. She was a leader at the small New Thought Unity Center of Truth in the 1960s and 70's and later was a member of the Universalist Unitarian Fellowship. She began studying metaphysics and practicing yoga and meditation in the 1950s.
Ahna grew her own food in organic front and backyard gardens, sprouted beans in the windowsill, planted thousands of flowers was very close to the earth. For years, she donated tree saplings to forests as birthday gifts. In its most dynamic years, the family's landscaping business had included a nursery stock and sod and tree farm outside Amarillo. As young entrepreneurs, the Baers even operated a small backyard earthworm ranch for community gardeners.
She trained with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, one of Amarillo's first hospice volunteers, and was committed to dying at home in San Diego under hospice care. As a young woman, she had served as a Pink Lady hospital volunteer and worked in a doctor's office. She became a student of natural healing and alternative health care. She learned to do Oriental Shen, healing touch and gave foot massages as Christmas presents in the Christian tradition of bathing the feet.
Ahna was a pacifist who pinned hearts on the fence at the controversial BWTX Pantex plant outside Amarillo to promote nuclear disarmament. She was instrumental in bringing the first Montessori Academy to Amarillo, recruiting her mother-in-law Estella Major Baer as its first directress.
She is remembered as a young PTA room mother, a Sunday school teacher, and a competitive duplicate bridge player and roller skater. She was an accomplished cook and party hostess. Her home was always open to entertain and help friends, neighbors and strangers. She and her late husband supported Amarillo College arts, Amarillo Little Theater and Amarillo Garden Center.
Ahna was an independent, hard-working woman who had been emancipated since age 12. Her parents were poor sharecroppers who rode the rails with their little girl across the west during the Depression. A family story recalls her impoverished parents digging a hole in Washington state, where they could safely leave their little girl while they picked apples. She weathered many storms in her life and emerged with the sunniest disposition and a highly pragmatic life philosophy. Facing cancer and imminent death, she said matter-of-factly, "It's just life."
The highlight of Ahna's golden years in San Diego was her romance and marriage to her second husband Gary Lauer. She was fully engaged in activities at Wesley Palms Retirement Community, co-starring in their television commercial. Ahna played Sally in their production of,"You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown," stage managed, "Steel Magnolias," and served on several committees. She could be found three mornings a week on beach walks with her beloved cattle-dog Di, in the pool for water aerobics classes or attending many field trips, movies, lectures, concerts and dances.
She lived fully and generously and her many friends and family are inspired by her tenacity, joy of living and giving spirit.
The family suggests memorials be to Wildcat Bluff Nature Center of Amarillo.
Survivors include her husband, Gerret "Gary" Lauer of San Diego, two daughters DeNeice Kenehan and husband Rob Smith of San Diego and Kay Martinez and husband Johnny Martinez of Waco, Texas; two grandsons, Brittain and Conner Beam; and a granddaughter, Jordan Martinez of Waco; and her half-brother, Randall Rutherford of Amarillo.
"No matter what happens in your Life, keep going. Don't give up. Don't whine. Don't blame. When you feel sad or sorry for yourself, give to others. Be close to the Earth. Get your hands dirty. Learn new things. Be curious. Don't be afraid to ask silly questions. Don't rush. Take your time at the museum, and savor every bite. Be discerning about what you take into your body and mind. Speak out. Put feet under your passions. Be positive in public. And let your heart open with friends. Be honest. Be yourself, however kooky. Dance! Do what you need to do to receive love and not disappear in the crowd. Be gluttonous for experience. Use your body up, and have fun doing it. Be brave at the end. Do it your way. Give me flowers while I'm alive, and please don't wear black to my funeral."- daughter, DeNeice Kenehan.
Family links:
Spouse:
Edgar Max Baer (1930 - 2006)*
*Calculated relationship
Burial:
Unknown
Created by: Edith Guynes Stanley
Record added: Mar 31, 2013
Find A Grave Memorial# 107612792
|
1932 - 2013 (80 years)