James Henry Baden, Jr.

November 27, 1916 – November 14, 1994

 

James Henry Baden, Jr., known as “Henry” or “Jim Henry” to his family, was born in Washington, DC.  His parents (James Henry Baden, Sr. and Elizabeth Barbour Baden) lived in Chevy Chase, then a suburb of downtown Washington proper.  In 1922 the family moved to Anacostia and Jim Henry attended Eastern High School.  He graduated the University of North Carolina in 1939 with a BS in Geology.  From 1939-1942 he worked for the Smithsonian Institution’s astrophysical laboratory in Chile.  

In 1942 he returned by boat from Chile to register for the draft.  He served in the Army as a weather scientist.  (See the story about Will Barbour.)   

After leaving the service he was an employee of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.  During his career (1946-1976) he had assignments in many parts of the world, including Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, Maryland, Virginia, and Colorado.   

In 1951 he married Marjorie B. Hebbard in Washington, DC.  His son, James Bradford Baden, was born June 10, 1953, in Hawaii (which was not yet one of the United States.) 

His hobbies included hiking, camping, and square dancing. 

He died in Arizona, where he and his wife used to spend winters after their retirement; his ashes were distributed in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. 

Notes by Tom Parker, nephew: 

Uncle Jim was always spoken of as a very intelligent man.  He was said to have learned to read and observe the weather as a toddler, and to have read the complete works of Dickens by the time he was eleven.  My mother (Mary Baden Parker) said that he and his sister and younger brother were all given music lessons, but that Jim Henry would only pretend to practice his violin while reading a book on the music stand as he played the same exercise over and over.  He is often seen in his childhood photos proudly wearing a scout uniform.  He became a weather scientist in South America; we have two oil paintings of the Andes in our home today which he brought back and gave to my mother.  My mother said that he was involved in predicting the weather for D-Day, which was a very crucial part of the operation.

Uncle Jim was a very quiet man.  He seldom had much to say, which was frustrating because he had so many interests and experiences that we would have loved to hear him talk about.  I remember that when I would drive in the car with him, he would be content to turn on the classical music station and listen.  When we visited him in Fredericksburg, Virginia in the 50’s I would usually wind up in his basement, happily reading through his collection of Saturday Evening Posts and National Geographics, which took up a large part of the room.  But despite his bookish image, he loved to square dance.  When we went to Cat Tail in North Carolina, he and Aunt Marjorie would turn out for the dances in colorful costumes and where usually some of the few people there who actually knew how to dance properly (many would just stomp around any old way.)  Once I went hiking with him and Uncle Tom and some other children and we went all the way up Cat Tail Peak, spent the night there (taking turns at night watch because of the bears), and then on to Mount Mitchell and back the next day.