Autumn Years Spring 2024

By Emily Kratzer

ror etching and Pysanky (highly deco rated Ukrainian Easter eggs). Mary met her first husband, Tom Walker, who was stationed at Fort Leav enworth, Kansas, when he came to her college for a mixer. Tom was from Clif ton, New Jersey, and upon teaching one year outside of Cleveland, Ohio, Mary followed him East, and to teach in Ridge wood. They were married in 1970 and moved to San Francisco when Tom had been transferred from Boston. Mary taught in the San Jose Unified School District for two years, before Tom was asked to return to corporate headquarters in New York City, and they moved back to Ridgewood. Mary returned to teaching second grade there for another seven years. They adopted two babies, and Mary felt fortunate to be able to stay home with them for ten years before returning to the Ridgewood workforce again, in 1989. Lou grew up in Bergenfield and his eyes twinkle as he says that he liked foot ball and girls, football and girls. He also enjoyed going to see movies at local the

he artist and the poet sit side by side in their Mahwah townhouse, a real life pairing of the “Painted Poetry” works shown in their joint exhibits. Mary’s award-winning works adorn the walls: watercolors, photographs, alcohol inks and graphite showing nature scenes, people or places they have seen while traveling or simply from imagination. Outside are calming woods and be yond the woods, a playground of laugh ing children give 78-year-old Mary Walker-Baptiste a happy reminder of her years as a teacher of second- and third graders. Beside her, Lou Baptiste grins “Thirty-five!” when asked his age—then admits he is 81. Classical piano sets a musical back ground as they share stories of their lives. Mary grew up in Iowa and gradu ated from the University of Saint Mary in Kansas, where she majored in El ementary Education and minored in Art. Her parents were artists, her broth er now a retired Disney Imagineer, and her sister did both art and music. Mary’s mother, an oil painter, once worked for

Serbian Roses II, watercolor on canvas paper.

a photographer, and she added color using tiny brushes and the oils to sepia tinted photographs. Her father used to paint signs and billboards—up on the scaffolding before billboard signs came ready to install. Her father was also display director of a large department store in Burlington, Iowa. He described himself as an “artist of all trades.” Mary is an artist of all media, including pho tographs, watercolors, oils, alcohol inks, collage and clay. She has also done mir-

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SPRING 2024 I AUTUMN YEARS