THREE RIVERS AREA — Last week, many people worldwide tuned in to watch the royal wedding on television. Gail Harley of Batesville has a special interest in the royal family because she has roots at Buckingham Palace.
Her great-grandfather, Adolphus Baker, advanced rapidly in the British Army. As one of the “beefeaters,” Baker was a body guard for Queen Victoria.
While working at the palace, Baker caught the eye of Frances Leale, whose father was the coppersmith to the queen.
As Harley told the story of her great-grandparents’ love, she pointed to souvenirs from a different time that adorn shelves, curio cabinets and the fireplace mantle of her home.
Leale had traveled the world with Anglican missionaries. During her travels, she spent four years in Australia with the Aborigines and rode in a camel caravan through the deserts of Arabia. On a ship to Australia, cholera broke out, and many fell victim to the disease and were wrapped in sailcloth and buried at sea.
“It’s hard to imagine what type of life she had traveling the world,” Harley said about her great-grandmother.
After Leale, who was a descendant of Count Leale, an Italian nobleman, returned to London, Harley said, Leale and Baker fell in love and wanted to get married, but Leale’s family considered Baker a common soldier and didn’t give their blessing for the marriage. So the couple eloped. Leale’s father disowned her, and after the couple’s first child was born in London, the family sailed to America in 1863.
They arrived during the Civil War and had their second child in New York.
Eventually, the Baker family settled in Batesville and opened up a tin shop on Main Street, carrying on Leale’s father’s trade.
The Bakers’ daughter Bertha followed in her mother’s footsteps and saw the world. She became the governess for Chicago businessman Albert Dick’s children. The A.B. Dick Co. licensed key patents from Thomas Edison and became the world’s largest manufacturer of mimeograph equipment.
“I remember her,” Harley said about her great-aunt Bertha. “She taught me to drink tea.”
Harley pointed out a tea set that sits next to a photograph of Bertha in Venice in 1901. The tea set in Harley’s living room had belonged to Bertha.
Walter Baker, who was Harley’s grandfather, followed in his father’s footsteps and took over the tin shop after Adolphus died in 1909. Baker ran the business for 45 years after his father’s death.