Longtime teacher loved her students

1/10/2003

ADRIAN - Alice K. Baer, 95, a longtime teacher in southeast Michigan, died of cancer Wednesday in the Hospice of Northwest Ohio in Perrysburg Township.

Relatives said Ms. Baer was always attracted to children and, in her own quiet way, taught to her last days.

Born Alice Seeburger in Riga, Mich., she was a graduate of Blissfield High School and Lenawee County Normal School in 1925.

Gilbert Seeburger, Mrs. Baer's nephew, said teaching was his aunt's first love. She began teaching in one-room schools after receiving her bachelor's degree from the then-Eastern Michigan College in 1936. He said she taught in Monroe and Lenawee counties for 26 years.

“She was a wonderful lady,” Mr. Seeburger said. “She didn't have any children of her own, but she loved the children she taught. She lived with us for nine months, and she made everything so easy for us. She would read stories to our great-grandchildren and just loved it.”

Mrs. Baer taught the last 10 years at McKinley Elementary School in Adrian, from which she retired.

“She talked fondly of her days in the one-room schools and how she would start the fire every morning,” said Florence Seeburger, Mr. Seeburger's wife.

She married her husband, the Rev. Albert H. Baer, in 1952.

“He was a widower, and they met and hit it right off,” Mrs. Seeburger said. “She never had any children, but he had two - I believe they were 15 and 16 when they married. They've all passed now. When [Mr. Baer] retired, they went down to Florida, where he substituted for other pastors, and she really enjoyed being with him.”

The Baers lived in Ann Arbor from 1956 to 1968. Mr. Baer died in 1973, and Mrs. Baer returned to Adrian, where she lived with relatives.

Surviving are nieces, nephews, four step-granddaughters, and 10 step-great-grandchildren.

The body will be in the Braun Everiss Wagley Funeral Home, Adrian, from 4 to 8 p.m. today. Services will be at 2 p.m. tomorrow in St. Stephen's Lutheran Church.

The family requests tributes to the Hospice of Northwest Ohio or the church.