Tributes from Friends & Family

Dear Missy,

I’ve seen all the work you’ve been putting in on family recently. Bless you!

I’m Roz Strang, wife of John Strang, cousin to your dad. John was the only son of Ruth and Flick (Francis) Strang. We’re located in Washington state, so our apologies that we won’t be able to make the family reunion or the Zoom memorial. But you are definitely in our thoughts at this time. Best wishes and our condolences for your dad’s loss.

Did your father ever mention how he and his cousin accidentally discovered each other at the Talkeetna Airport after 20+ years of not seeing each other? They hadn’t seen each other since childhood. Their families grew up together until Flick and Ruth moved to Washington in 1963. Your dad was always “Big John” and my husband John was always “Buddy” or “Little John,” which was immediately funny to them both, for “Little John” had surpassed “Big John” and had grown to 6’3” tall. Their encounter was when your dad travelled to Alaska on one of his Stickleback surveys. He then brought the whole crew to Valdez (about 400 miles) for a visit!

Just a lovely remembrance.

Best regards,
Roz & John Strang
Washington State, USA

John, Matt Wund (kissing him), Jill Wund, Dale Stevens. In the back are Maya and Olivia Wund. All these folks are bananas!

It’s great to hear from you! I was just at Clark University [in March 2022] for Dale Stevens’ thesis defense. I miss John and Susan every day, but it was especially tough to be at Clark without them.

I was glad to help mentor Dale, who successfully defended his thesis. I am sure that John and Susan would have been very proud of him. As you can imagine, Dale gave a lovely tribute to the two of them at his defense.

Sincerely,
Matt (Wund) (and Jill, Maya & Olivia)
Yardley, Penn., USA

Billy Foster, Aesook Byon, Bill Foster, Christine (Foster) Loveridge, Jeanette “Jimmy” Foster (seated) in 2012.

I am so sorry for your loss. I don't think we've ever met in person; I'm Christine Foster Loveridge, Susan’s niece (daughter of Susan's brother Bill). I am so glad you got to spend time with your dad before he passed. I looked through the blog, and it looks like the two of you had some tremendous adventures together over the past couple months.

I'll miss your dad; he was a wonderful uncle to me, a tremendous storyteller, and he had the best mustache! Whenever he and Susan would visit my grandparents’ house in Madison, I remember John would spend hours playing with me and the other kids, pointing out fish, birds, and other little bits of nature in the trees and along the lake shore.

Thank you for the invitation to the reunion of sorts. My husband Jack and I recently moved to El Paso, TX, where he grew up. If you ever find yourself out this way, do get in touch.

Christine Loveridge

Stickeback conference (2006?). John is kneeling in the front row, and Susan is in the middle of the first standing row.

Thanks for the message. I worked on Alaskan threespine stickleback for my dissertation and John was always extremely helpful. I interacted with Susan at John in Alaska and at Clark University. (We also went to the same institution for our Masters—the University of Southern Mississippi—although 20 years apart). I am attaching a picture from one of the Stickleback conferences. I believe it is from 2006.

Best wishes,
Windsor Aguierre
DePaul University

Along with David Heins and Matt Wund we are working on an “In Memoriam” focusing on John’s many professional achievements. Dave has been in touch with Rich King so that our efforts will complement each other.

Here is the final obituary that was just published in the October 2021 issue of Ecology of Freshwater Fish. We intended this document to focus primarily on John’s career in biology. Hope you are doing well.

Thinking of you,
Steve & Yvonne Ross
Colorado, USA

I just heard the sad news about your dad (and Susan), and wanted to tell you how sorry I am and that you are the first person I thought about when I heard. Please don’t be too upset, and please convey my condolences to your mom and brother for me. In my belief system the reality of one’s existence is an eternal record that does not fade away. And John was a shining example. I consider myself very privileged to have known him.

Love,
Chet (Rakocinski)
University of Southern Mississippi

I truly appreciate the [email] invites & I would love to peruse the slideshow and website once they're complete, but I was accepted to the Marine Biological Lab's short course on Embryology this summer and because of that I unfortunately won't be able to attend any of these events via Zoom or in person. The course organizers have really impressed on me how busy I'm going to be for most of the summer, and I doubt I will have time off, even on the weekends.

I just wanted to reach out partly to say how much I appreciate being included in all of this. I also wanted to say that with this accomplishment, I have been thinking a lot about your dad [John Baker] and Susan [Foster] and how excited they would be for me. I have really missed sharing my good academic news with them, they were always so supportive and so convinced that I was good at this, it made it so much easier for me to believe it, too. And now I've won a scholarship to a very prestigious course in my field - and that’s partly because they made sure I knew it was possible. I think of them often and try every day to be the kind of mentor to my students that they were to me.

Sending love,
Dina Navon

Thanks for your email and keeping me posted on events. I knew this day was coming because John had kept me posted.

I really enjoyed working with John. He was always passionate about the science and mentoring students. We had several projects together that we weren’t able to finish, and I’ll miss him as we work with students to complete them. I can hear his thoughts on the science in my head – what he would suggest to improve the work, how he would analyze the data, and how he would encourage the students.

John was an amazing colleague. He and I co-supervised a couple of graduate students and I was always impressed by his patience and depth of knowledge. I did not directly collaborate with Susan [Foster], but we debated ideas (including at their beautiful home) and those debates helped me to sharpen my own ideas.

John and Susan were both older than me (I’m 55) and I read much of their work when I was in graduate school in my early 20s, so it was particularly enjoyable for me to interact with them as I launched my career as a young professor. Now I find myself carrying on one of their projects as they were scheduled to write the stickleback conservation section of the new edition of Freshwater Fishes of North America – and in their absence I have taken over this task. I inevitably think of them both as I work on the manuscript.

My very best regards,
Frank von Hippel, PhD
University of Arizona

Chanigapours in Petersham for a BBQ in the summer of 2016 (Mostafa in the middle in the back, and his son Shayan in front, both wearing plaid shirts & baseball caps)

Mostafa, John, Shayan at Clark in the Lassiter Building, Clark University

We are so sorry to hear this sad news, please accept our deepest condolence and also convey to Dylan, Patrick, Rich King and Kevin.

John was so friendship and warm and we had so good memories with him specially summer 2016 at his barbecue party in his Petersham house. At least he traveled and visited families and friends.

Shahi my wife says we will miss him more and more specifically when we visit Clark in future. We wish his soul to be in peace and rest. Michele please be in contact in case we visited USA, we give you a call.

Take care,
Mostafa, Shahi & Shayan Chadeganipour
Iran

Thank you for sharing the blog of your 6-week road trip with John. I was a graduate student with John and Susan at Clark. As a fellow hockey fan, John used to coax me (with little effort) to find some “interesting” bars in Alaska and British Columbia to watch playoff hockey games with "the locals."

I am so sorry for your loss. John was a wonderful advisor, mentor, and friend. I am glad you got them to take the trip with him; though I wish I had known you were driving thru Troy, NY, and would have seen him (and meet you). Again I am so sorry for your loss. We will all miss him dearly.

Sincerely,
Justin L. Golub, PhD
Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts

I am a former student on Susan and John’s and I wanted to reach out to both offer my sincerest sympathy for your dad’s passing and to say thank you for putting into writing the last 6 weeks of your dad’s life. It was such a pleasure (and at times tear inducing) to read about his last days. I can’t imagine he would have wanted to spend them any differently. How lucky you are to have had this time with your dad.

Your father, and Susan, influenced my husband (also a former student) and I tremendously. We have become who we are as academics and people (perhaps more importantly) because of both of them. I regret that we did not keep in good touch with John and Susan after we left Mass for the west coast (we’ve been in Oregon since the fall of 2000). We always though we’d return to New England but life has a funny way of changing your best made plans. We thought about them often but never committed the time to returning to Clark (except once just a few years after we left). Always figured there would be time... Both John and Susan passed too soon but I'm forever grateful that they are now together.

I hope you are surrounded by family, love and precious memories as you grieve.

One last comment, your father is one of the funniest persons I have ever known! I can’t tell you how many times he had me (and others in the lab) crying with laughter. I can still hear him saying some of his funniest lines! I hope I never forget this.

Wishing you comfort,
Cristin Hulslander
University of Oregon

I finally read through the entire blog. I am so happy you shared this as I know you also were so happy to have had that special time with him. Everyone John met, he was gracious to: he was one of the smartest, funniest and helpful people I have ever known. He gave the world more than he will ever know. I wish everyone could have a little John in them, the world would be a better place.

Much love your way and keep me posted.

Sincerely,
Stella M. Richard, M.S., M.A., Ph.D.

John was a wonderful man. One of the nicest guys in science. I'll really miss him, just as I will miss Susan. They made science interesting, rigorous and fun. I feel privileged to have got to know them both. My condolences to you and the rest of your family.

Perhaps you will appreciate the fact that, when I heard the sad news that he had died — and as a tribute to John — I re-watched Monty Python's "Life of Brian." It did indeed remind me of many shared evenings that inevitably descended into us quoting Monty Python.

Best wishes,
Professor Kevin N. Laland, PhD, FRSB, FRSE
University of St. Andrews
United Kingdom

We are working on pulling the bios [from John’s Clark University webpage] if we can recover them. I have attached [John Baker’s and Susan Foster’s] CVs from the Provost’s Office. [Read a PDF of John Baker’s 21-page Curriculum Vitae here.]

Also, we have lots of great classroom and outdoors photos of your father with students, and we are pulling those together. From what I’ve been told, Susan didn’t like to be photographed, so we don’t have as many of her. [Attached to this email] are a couple we have of Susan. We are all in Marketing and Communications, and many of us here loved working with your dad – writing stories and taking photos. He was so good with the students – and we have great photos that show his mentorship.

Best,
Meredith King, Steve King, Millie Rossman & Andrew Hart
Clark University Marketing and Communications Team

Michele BakerApril 6, 2022Comment

Dad

Tributes from Friends & Family