West Lynn home for six generations

LYNN – Home is where the heart is for Natalie Baker, and it is where it has been for 150 years for the West Lynn resident and six generations of family members.With Barry Park visible through their rear windows, 42 Laurel St. and 40 Laurel St. were built before the Civil War. The houses have been expanded over the decades as Baker?s family grew from generation to generation.?I think the kitchens were originally in the basement and I know my father raised turkeys in the backyard,” Baker said.A veteran city employee who retired from the comptroller?s office in 2009, Baker grew up at 42 Laurel St. and moved to California as a young woman before returning to West Lynn and living there ever since.?It feels secure. Sometimes I say, ?Maybe I?ll move out,? but I don?t want to give up that view of the park and everything that comes with it,” she said.She can remember when winter turned the park into a skating rink just yards away from the edge of her yard.?They used to run a hose from the hydrant in front of our house to the park: We were skating all the time,” she said.Baker?s daughter, Jean, and her grandsons, Grady and Nolan, live at 40 Laurel St. The boys have followed in her footsteps and frequently cross the few feet separating 40 and 42 Laurel to spend time with her.?I grew up in 42, but I was always hanging out next door,” she said.A municipal worker for more than 40 years, Baker is not the only member of her family to work for the city. Her aunt. Mildred Grady, was the art supervisor for Lynn Public Schools.Very little has changed on Laurel Street in the decades Baker has lived there. Barry Park resembles the playground she enjoyed as a girl playing with friends, and the pine trees in her backyard are taller.?The street itself doesn?t look any different,” she said.Baker?s father, Nathaniel Grady, lived at 42 Laurel St., but Baker is pretty sure he spent much of his boyhood at 40 Laurel. Her grandfather, Martin Grady, was married to Ellen Powell, and Baker has an 1899 newspaper clipping noting how Powell?s parents lived for almost a half-century at 40 Laurel St.Additions on both homes have not altered their original appearances: Baker?s home looks the same as it did in a photograph showing Baker as a young girl standing next to the house with her sister, Margaret Stone, and their mother, Margaret.Her ancestors and her children and grandchildren attended Sacred Heart School. A few relatives have branched out beyond West Lynn, including her grandfather?s brother, Billy, who made a name for himself as a Hollywood talent agent.?Every time he came to see us, he would drive up in this big Cadillac,” Baker recalled.Baker said her grandsons might be the sixth and last generation to live in the Laurel Street house but she plans to stay at 42 Laurel St. until their plans take shape.?Once they get into college, I?ll sell,” she said.