Remembering Kat Baker

Today I am remembering Kat Baker, my friend and fellow doctoral alum from Vanderbilt University. Her obituary reports that Dr. Katharine Haywood Baker, “passed away peacefully at her home on August 28, 2024, following a brief bout of pancreatic cancer.” The news did not reach me until mid-December. She was much too young. And the loss was a shock. I have been waiting for a good moment to share publicly my remembrances and appreciations for Kat.

This Thursday is Giving Day at Vanderbilt University where Kat not only earned her PhD but also worked for about a decade, making many beloved friends. She tended souls, made us laugh, and helped us get our work done. I can’t think of a better way to honor her than to tell those stories. And then give to Vanderbilt Divinity School or the Grad School where she invested so much life energy!

Thus, the moment has arrived. Today I am sharing one of my favorite stories about Kat. And I’m inviting friends to tell me your fav story about her, too. And then I hope you will consider a gift (of any size) in honor of Kat’s memory to Vanderbilt Divinity School.

Remembering Kat Baker

I have lots of memories of Kat. I met her in my second year when she came into the Religion, Psychology, and Culture (RPC) doctoral program. We shared the same advisors and many classes. Meals. Meetings and events at the Center for Teaching. Phone calls. Grad School parties (don’t get excited, those were very tame). And one blizzard. Not the kind from Dairy Queen, but an actual snowstorm. Kat saved me that day. And it really is my favorite memory of her.

It was the winter of 2003. A January morning just a few days before my birthday.  I left my house in Bellevue early to brave the morning traffic. Parking in Wesley Place garage was easy that time of day. And I walked over to the Divinity School.

My 8 o’clock class on Thursdays was Baptist History and Polity with Dr. Jimmy Byrd. It was a small seminar-style class. I do think there were flurries in the air. But no indication of what was coming. Also I was missing my usual weatherman. My husband Lynn was out of town, so I did not receive (or heed) sufficient weather warnings.

Over the next two hours of class, the snow took on blizzard conditions. And over the next five hours, the storm dropped seven inches of snow across Nashville. It was fine and swirling when I looked out the window during our first class break, but in the next part of class, it began to pour.

Driving in a Blizzard

By the time I walked out of the Divinity School around 10:00am, there was a gigantic mess on the roads. Like other people, I left home that day as if there were nothing going on. Public schools let out at 9:00am. Parents left work. And Nashville became gridlocked. No one truly predicted the scale of this storm.

I managed to get out of Wesley garage and inch along 21st Avenue toward my home in Bellevue. I don’t remember how long that took, but maybe an hour? It usually took three or four minutes. West End was a parking lot. Everyone was trying to go home and no one was actually going anywhere. West End doesn’t seem like a very hilly street, but it was just enough that people were slipping and sliding, spinning tires, and going nowhere. I remember my own fear of running out of gas. At least I had my flip phone!

Somehow, I had Kat Baker‘s phone number. Thank heavens. I knew she lived somewhere off Murphy Road. So I called her as I inched my way along West End. “Kat! Hi, I’m creeping along in this blizzard, trying to leave campus. I don’t think I’m going to make it home. I’ve already been trying for two hours. At this rate, I’ll never make it to Bellevue. The radio says the interstates are at a standstill. If I can make it to Murphy Road and get my car out of the traffic, can I spend the night at your place?”

“Of course!” Kat said, “Come on over! I have room for you.” Kat always had room for people. After another couple of hours of slipping and sliding, I managed to park my car along a side street, somewhere in Kat’s neighborhood. I walked the rest of the way to her house in what was approaching seven inches of snow on the ground.

Talking Non-Stop

I had nothing I needed for a night away from home. And that one night turned into two. But Kat and I braved the cold, and before dark descended (winter in Nashville begins at 3:30ish even when skies are clear), we walked to The Produce Place. We picked up food for dinner and snacks. I remember some yogurt-covered dried cherries that were amazing. I can still taste them.

She cooked dinner. We washed dishes, talking non-stop the whole time.

Kat and I are both extroverts. So we sat up late talking about theology, our looming comprehensive exams, and all our past and present relationships. We talked and laughed our way through everything under the sun. The topics I remember most were Katherine Keller’s process theology, which Kat was studying. And Edward Farley‘s theological anthropology in his book Good and Evil. Kat and I had been in a clinical seminar along with Jasung Ha and Yohan Ka. She and Yohan were in their second year. Bruce Rogers-Vaughn was our supervisor and he assigned Farley‘s book. Kat and I were also taken with psychoanalyst Jessica Benjamin. The ideas we talked through that night became critical in our dissertations.

It was like a grad school slumber party. Kat and I had both come to back to school after other careers, so neither of us were in the habit of dorm life. But Kat gave me an extra toothbrush, and I washed my face. And I went to sleep in the guest room. The next morning the snow still blanketed everything, reflecting brightly through the blinds.

Bonding

Of course something so unusual, like an impromptu snow-storm slumber party becomes a bonding experience. But I really don’t know what I would’ve done without Kat. Walk 10 miles in the snow? No way. She was a total gift to me. And not just that day, but so many other days.

The kind of hospitality that Kat offered to me was just like her. She was always welcoming people, helping them feel at home. Laughing riotously, even when things were only mildly funny. She was just the kind of person who always made me feel at ease. Made me feel better just being around her.

So when I heard the news in Advent this year, that Kat was gone, I felt the loss sharply. At the time of her death last summer I was away from my regular routines for most of a month. I had no idea she was even ill.

But the bonds I share with Kat also turned my heart to deep appreciation. She has died, yet her impact on me, and the bonds we shared continue in my heart and mind.

Tonight I looked back over emails and found exchanges when Kat worked at Vanderbilt’s Center for Teaching. She sent me resources any time I needed them. She supported me as a new professor. And in Kat’s years at the Cal Turner Center, I saw her more often. We were in a working group aiming to bring more justice to the prison system in Tennessee. As usual Kat was encouraging, facilitating, and bringing people together.

What are your stories of Kat?

Kat liked to joke that her dissertation was just a big book report. But like the other ways she used self-deprecation for a laugh, she was underselling her vast gifts, skills, and abilities. Actually, “Souls in process: Psychospiritual sustenance for women’s subjectivity” is such a perfect title. Kat was a woman in process all the years she wove her presence in and out of my life. She generously and genuinely supported many students and colleagues, just as she supported me, all of us on our way to becoming the souls we could be.

Kat was both charming and efficient. She helped people feel at home and also encouraged them to do their best work. She was a teacher, a mentor-coach, an encourager. How much better she made my time as a doctoral student! We even got to walk together at graduation! And both of us were hooded by Dr. Bonnie Miller-McLemore sixteen years ago.

Did you know Kat? What are your favorite stories about her? Did she support you in your becoming a better version of yourself?

Will you join me in giving a gift to Vanderbilt this week? The Graduate School was her doctoral home and the Divinity School was a place where she encouraged students, friends and colleagues for so many years. Let’s honor her memory this week.

Give to Vanderbilt in Memory of Kat Baker

There is even a gathering on Thursday morning. Join friends at the Div school if you can! Giving Day gathering VDS.