The birthday gift

The boy who lived

She had to have known, on that day when she herself was celebrating her birthday, that there would be another birthday very very soon.

It was, after all, not Julia (McGimsey) Baker’s first “rodeo” there on that day, 174 years ago today.

By the time that birthday rolled around on 8 December 1844 — her 34th¹ — she had already given birth to six children² — and had already buried two of them.³

It wasn’t even the first time Julia had been very very pregnant on her birthday. A daughter, her namesake Julia, had been born 11 December 1838,⁴ so you know she knew she was about to receive another “birthday gift” of a new baby. And, sure enough, Theodore P. Baker came into this world in Bakersville, then Yancey and now Mitchell County, North Carolina, the very next day, on the 9th of December 1844.⁵

Julia was born and raised in that same area of western North Carolina, the second daughter of Joseph McGimsey and Allie (Moore) Wakefield McGimsey,⁶ and the second to marry one of the Baker brothers, my third great granduncles and sons of my fourth great grandfather David Baker. Her older sister, whose name is alternately rendered as Sena and Lena, married David Davenport Baker in 1832;⁷ Julia married a younger brother, Josiah Baker, on 17 November 1835.⁸

In all, Julia bore 11 children, and their births are carefully recorded in the family Bible:

Newton A. Baker, born 22 September 1836.
William J. Baker, born 21 December 1837.
Julia Ann Baker, born 11 December 1838.
David Martin Baker, born 8 May 1840.
John F. Baker, born 4 October 1841.
Joseph B. Baker, born 21 February 1843.
Theodore P. Baker, born on 9 December 1844.
America A. Baker, born on 18 June 1846.
Elizabeth J. Baker, born 17 October 1848.
Phebe Louisa Baker, born 4 June 1850.
Charles F. Baker, born 12 October 1852.⁹

And at a time of significant child mortality, it’s remarkable that she raised nine of those children to adulthood: she lost little William when he was just a year old, on 29 December 1838, and Daniel Martin when he was three months short of his third birthday, on 11 February 1843.¹⁰

On the 1860 census, there they all are: Julia, age 49; her husband Josiah, 58, a farmer; and nine children, ranging in age from 23-year-old Newton down to seven-year-old Charles.¹¹

And then came the war.

And nothing would ever be the same.

• Newton A. Baker, just 26 years old, died in Confederate service at Jacksboro, Tennessee, on 24 March 1863.¹²

• John F. Baker, not yet 21, died of fever in Confederate service on 10 June 1863.¹³

• Joseph B. Baker, just 21 years old, died in battle in Confederate service at the Battle of Allatoona Pass, Georgia, on 5 October 1864.¹⁴

And Theodore P. Baker — Julia’s fourth son — her last son old enough to serve in the war at all — like his older brothers also served the Confederacy.¹⁵

But there was one big difference between Theodore and his older brothers.

Unlike his older brothers, that birthday gift baby of 1844 was the boy who lived.

Theodore P. Baker came home from that war.

He married Hannah Tate on 18 June 1874,¹⁶ raised a family of his own¹⁷ and lived until the age of 81.¹⁸

And every December until her death on 16 February 1882,¹⁹ Julia and her birthday gift baby could celebrate together.

And that, you have to hope, was some comfort amidst the loss.

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