Sidney Raymond Baer

I am a bit of a packrat and collector of curiosities. I think I come by this genetically. My grandparents on my mother's side were huge accumulators. In the 1970's they had two auctions to sell off excess stuff they had purchased over the years from flea-marketing and from garage-saling and from going to other people's auctions.

Their own auctions each took two days and involved two auction rings running the entire time. Needless to say, they were BIG sales.

That's why I feel I come by my tendencies to acquire things naturally. However, unlike my grandparents, as I've grown older I've gotten more selective with my purchases.

For instance, would I still buy the mounted boar's head -- his name is Bob -- that I picked up at an antique store in St. Louis in the early 1990s if the offer presented itself today and I didn't already own a boar's head? Most likely would not. Tastes change. Well, that and marital status.

But on occasion an oddball item will still call out to me, and I can't resist the urge to buy it.

One of these urges happened to me last Friday in the form of a book. This was not unexpected since I happened to be attending the St. Louis Book Fair.

My wife and I have attended this annual event for about the last ten years. For most of that time the fair has been held somewhere at the West County Shopping Center. It was in a giant tent in the mall's parking lot for a couple years. Then after the mall was renovated a few years ago the fair was moved into one of the parking garages.

The sale is held over 4 days typically at the end of April and the beginning of May, and it is a big event. Each year the organizers offer up to a half-million items with the proceeds going to charity. The prices are reasonable and you never know what oddity you might stumble across.

Which is what happened to me last Friday. I was browsing one of the tables of books and noticed a thick hardback.

"The Yale Banner and Pot Pourri 1911-1912" the spine called out to me. It was a pre-World War 1 yearbook for the Ivy League university.

I flipped open the front cover. The name of the yearbook's original owner was written on the inside; Sidney R. something-or-other. No one noteworthy, I thought at the time.

I started to put the yearbook back, but decided it was worth keeping. Considering that my house is from that time period, I thought it might make an interesting and appropriately aged addition to our decor. Plus it was in near perfect shape.

Later that night, when we got home from our trip, I decided to figure out who Mr. Sidney R. something-or-other was. I poured over the list of Yale students at the back of the book and eventually found him on page 436.

The something-or-other last name that I couldn't initially identify was Baer.

According to the yearbook, Sidney Raymond Baer was a member of the 1912 senior class of the "academical department" of Yale College. He was from St. Louis, Missouri and while attending Yale his senior year he lived at "6 V." The "V" was an abbreviation of "Vanderbilt Hall," one of the university dorms.

Now that I had a name, I went page by page scanning for the accomplishments of Sidney Raymond Baer. I didn't find his name in any of Yale's many clubs and "societies." He wasn't a member of the nearly infamous "Skull & Bones" society or belonged to the "Cats and Kittens" student organization or was a member of the Yale Banjo Club.

I also didn't find his name anywhere in the athletics section. He wasn't on any of the rowing teams or a gymnast or fenced.

And I didn't find any academic accolades for Sidney Raymond Baer either. He apparently wasn't a Scholar by Yale standards in 1911.

He just appeared to be some guy who managed to go to Yale 100 years ago and was not a particular standout at the time.

However, a quick check of Google helped provide some information about Sidney Raymond Baer.

He came from a well-to-do family that co-founded one of the premier department stores in St. Louis, Stix, Baer & Fuller. After graduating from Yale, Sidney went into the family business. He married a Boston socialite in 1914 and had two sons.

The one son, Sidney, Jr. struggled with mental health issues all of his life and eventually passed away in 2002, but not before setting up the Sidney R. Baer, Jr. Foundation. According to the organization's website, it is dedicated to "supporting the efforts of organizations working to stimulate education, research and direct care in the mental health field."

The other son, Arthur, had a couple children who appear to still live in St. Louis today. Perhaps they were the ones who donated the yearbook to the book fair.

The Stix, Baer & Fuller department store chain was sold to Associated Dry Goods in 1966, but the seventies were not kind to that division of ADG. It could not compete against the other St. Louis retail giant, Famous Barr, and the remaining 13 stores were sold to Dillard's in 1984. Dillard's re-branded them under its name.

My family never shopped at Stix when it still existed. It was too upscale for my working-class parents. But I remember seeing the newspaper ads for the chain, and I will happily take care of this dusty reminder from an era gone by.

And if my wife doesn't want it in HER living room, I suppose I can fit it on one of the bookshelves in MY room. I know just the place. On the shelf right below Bob the boar's head.