Bio of Adin "Ben" Baber

Adin Baber, "Ben", grandson of Mary Ellen Hanks Baber, born July 26, 1892, 1/2 mile west of Dudley, Grandview Twp. Edgar County, Illinois in the old Alec Mann farmhouse. Died October 7, 1974 in Paris, Illinois. He married Lois Mary Shoot on September 27, 1924 at her home at 763 10th St. Charleston, Coles Co. Illinois. She was born December 24, 1892 at Charleston, Illinois and was the daughter of Tilford Taylor Shoot and Mary ELizabeth Wilhoit. Lois Mary Shoot Baber died August 2, 1943. Both are interred Fairview Cemetery, Kansas, Illinois.

His grandfather, Adin Baber, called him "Ben" for then President Benjamin Harrison, in order to differentiate between the two Adins. His mother called him "Bennie", his teen-age daughters and their friends called him "Pappy B".

He attended Dudley school, the Charleston, Illinois Normal School, Millikin University, and Syracuse university where he studied civil engineering. During World War I he was a volunteer ambulance driver in France with the American Field Service. In 1919 he drove U.S. treaty negotiators daily from Paris to Versailles.

He was President of the First National Bank of Paris, Illinois during the 1920's. In the early 1930's he operated a feed store at 104 NW 79th St. Little River, Florida where he was active in the South Florida Historical Society, Everglades Natural History Assn, and Fairchild Tropical Garden. He helped George Merrick survey Coral Gables, Florida. A lengthy monograph on native plants, The Foodstuff of the DeSoto Expedition, was written and presented by Adin in Florida.

Mr. Baber wrote cattle loans for Chicago and St. Louis banks in the late 1930's. From the mid 1930's until his death he lived in the 1873 farmhouse built on Grand Prairie, northeast of Kansas, Illinois by his grandparents.

Information Taken From: The Hanks Family Generations IX and X

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