Ann Hilton Baker

Ann Hilton Baker passed away on August 1, 2023, at the age of 88, in her beloved home in El Cajon, California.
Born Ann Hilton Peterson on September 20, 1934, in Duluth, Minnesota, to Ralph and Mary Anna Hilton Peterson, Ann moved with her family to La Mesa, California, when she was seven. After graduation from Grossmont High School, she attended San Diego State College (now University), where she thrived academically and socially. Ann emerged a natural campus leader, active in several college organizations–including Alpha Phi as well as SDSC's Associated Women Students, which she served as president her senior year. And she always remembered fondly the hands of bridge she and her friends played on the campus lawn between classes.
Ann graduated in 1956 with a business education major–but not before catching the eye of another collegian on that campus. Ann and John Baker married the following year, and–after a stint on the East Coast with John in the U.S. Navy–they returned to the San Diego area, where they built a business and a family over the next several decades.
As a housewife and partner with John in their business, Ann also loved being her typically active and socially engaged self, volunteering for many organizations, often in their leadership. She found meaning serving, especially in groups that reached out to socioeconomically struggling communities in the San Diego area (like the Assistance League). Or that generated scholarships for promising young scientists (like ARCS Foundation). All who knew Ann will remember her especially for her innate graciousness and generosity of time and substance.
And there was hardly an interest of hers that she didn't throw herself into wholeheartedly. Whether snow skiing, tennis, golf, sewing–Ann enrolled in lessons, entered tournaments, and typically excelled at all she put her heart into. Inspired by Ann's enthusiasm, her husband and daughter made regular winter jaunts to ski slopes throughout the West. And of course, it was a natural step for her to serve on the boards of San Diego County Women's Golf Association and Singing Hills Women's Golf Club.
Although she adored her home of thirty years on the 12th hole of a Singing Hills golf course, Ann and John were avid world travelers. They and their daughter, Lisa, saw the world together. In fact, Ann had the rare distinction of sailing–within the same year–both north of the Arctic Circle and south of the Antarctic Circle. And it was only three months before her passing that she took her final trip abroad: Switzerland and the Rhine River, with Lisa and Lisa's husband Tim.
Ann lost John in 2017 after 60 years of marriage. She is survived by her daughter Lisa Baker of Portland, Oregon; brother Ralph Peterson, Jr., of La Mesa, California; niece Jana Sulpizio of San Diego; and nephew Erik Petersen of Phelan, California.
A celebration of her life is planned for a later date.