In Remembrance: E. Bloxom Baker

Bloxy Baker was an angel: a hard driving, newspaper carrying, helicopter flying, hockey playing angel. He had so many sides to him, and in the years he worked at The Lakeville Journal driving, delivering and picking up newspapers, he shared the side of himself that was relentless, reliable to a fault, and endlessly responsible to his community.

When Bloxy first walked in our doors, we had just had a particularly difficult time with our driving. He truly came in as an angel who could reorganize the delivery department and understand every part of it, keeping the logistics in his head to implement every week. Does that sound easy? Trust me, it is not.

He was always thoughtful and attentive to his coworkers, especially his fellow drivers. When his buddy who drove with him fell on hard times, he tried everything to find ways to help him through a rough patch in his life. He never backed down from that, and stayed in close contact with him until the end of his own life.

During one end-of-year shutdown when the Journal was still at 33 Bissell Street in Lakeville, Bloxy took the time to paint a lot of that old, abused building. One part was a stairwell that needed staging to get to the high parts. When I asked if the Journal could help with that, paying for something that would work for him, he just said, “Don’t worry, I’ve got this. It will work.” As he expressed with so many things. And it did.

We sold that building to the bank not long after that, and it wound up being torn down, but that didn’t diminish the worth of his efforts in that moment. He had the mission of making things better around him, which was not ever an easy task at a small, struggling community weekly newspaper group.

The gratitude I, and we all at the Journal, have for Bloxy’s efforts in keeping the papers out there during COVID shutdown and so many other challenges is boundless. All I would hope is to emulate his spirit of getting up and moving forward despite all obstacles. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Bloxy, for setting a shining example of being undaunted by anything life could throw at you.

Janet Manko

Publisher Emeritus,
The Lakeville Journal