Howard Henry Baker Sr. (January 12, 1902 – January 7, 1964) was an American lawyer and politician who was elected to seven consecutive terms as a United States Representative from Tennessee from 1951 to 1964.
Baker was born in Somerset, Kentucky, in 1902 to James F. Baker, an attorney and newspaper publisher in Huntsville, Tennessee, and Kentucky native Helen Keen Baker.[1] The family moved to Huntsville, Tennessee, in 1909, and Baker spent most of his childhood in Scott County. The family moved to Knoxville in 1918, the same year that Baker entered the university there. He graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1922[1] and its law school in 1924; he was admitted to the Tennessee bar in 1923. Baker is an alumnus of the Epsilon Eta chapter of Sigma NuFraternity. After law school, Baker married Dora Ladd and returned to Huntsville to become a partner in his father's practice. Their son, Howard Baker Jr., was born in Huntsville in 1925.[1] Dora died when Howard Jr. was a child.[2] On September 15, 1935, he married Edith Irene Bailey.
Baker was elected to the 82nd and to the six succeeding Congresses and served from January 3, 1951, until his death from a heart attack in Knoxville, Tennessee on January 7, 1964.[4] He was succeeded in office by his widow Irene,[1] who completed his final term as a caretaker and sought no further election.[1]
Baker died, following a heart attack, at Fort Sanders Presbyterian Hospital, Knoxville, Knox County, Tennessee, January 7, 1964, five days before his 62nd birthday. He is interred at Sherwood Memorial Gardens, Alcoa, Tennessee.[9]Tennessee State Route 63 is named Congressman Howard H. Baker Highway in his honor.[10]
