A LOOK BACK -- JERRY PERSON

“Judge not least ye be judged,” is a familiar biblical passage, and

this week, we’re going to look back at someone who judged people for a

living.

Our subject is Judge Celia Young Baker, who was born Nov. 19, 1912 on

a cold gray day in Corning, N.Y. During her high school years, Baker

became interested in the law and justice system.

She attended the University of Buffalo and continued her studies at

George Washington University where she majored in law. She got some

practical experience working as a law clerk for a legal firm in New York.

In 1943, during World War II, Baker enlisted in the Navy and served as

an ensign in the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service. She

married her first husband, Carl Young, a Ferry Command pilot.

After the war ended, Carl and Celia had their first child, Carol, born

in 1945. A year later, a second girl, Linda, came along. Carl was

transferred to Long Beach bringing along his family.

Still interested in law, but without a law degree to practice here,

Baker took the California bar exam and passed in 1947. She set up a law

practice, and in 1948 was appointed a judge of the Huntington Beach City

Court where she metered out punishment equally to relatives and strangers

alike.

In 1953, while continuing her law practice, Baker ran for judge in the

Justice Court and won. Carl died in 1955 leaving Baker alone to raise her

two daughters.

By the 1950s Orange County’s population had increased dramatically,

and there became a need to establish a Municipal Court system. In 1959

Baker became Huntington Beach’s only municipal judge. As judge, she

handled traffic and minor offenses in which many of our locals would

nervously stand before her bar of justice.

Celia remarried. This time to a Huntington Beach resident George

Baker. From 1972 to 1990, she lived in the posh SeaCliff development on

Little Harbor Drive. Later she moved to Manifesto Circle in Huntington

Beach.

Young Baker retired from the bench in 1973. Meanwhile, her daughter

Carol Marshall had opened a decorator and gift store in Truckee, called

La Galleria. Her mother became a part owner.

In late 1992, Baker moved up to Santa Rosa where she passed away in

1993. She has left a long legacy of justice for today’s judges to follow.

* JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington Beach

resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at P.O. Box

7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.