Christ Community Covenant Church

Electa Cameron

Electa Jane Baur was born April 21, 1921 in Sioux City, Iowa to parents Walter and Electa Baur and spent her first four years in the Arnolds Park area of Lake Okoboji. Her father was a Swiss immigrant who moved to the United States after losing his first wife in childbirth. The child, Electa’s half-brother, was passed on to Walter’s sister to raise while Walter moved on to start a new life. He became a traveling sales-man working for Orchard & Wilhelm home furnishings in Omaha. During one of his sales trips he met Electa Willard, a former vaudeville actress who worked in a dress shop. They were married in 1920 and newborn Electa came along soon after. Walter was both a Jehovah Witness minister and a talented inventor. Electa recalls that she learned from family letters that one invention was a starter he hoped to sell to the Wright Brothers for their new invention, the airplane. He also invented a coil spring bed for the back of a car that may have been one of the first ideas eventually evolving in to the modern day RV. She still has an old copy of a Popular Mechanics magazine that featured his idea.

There were problems in her parent’s marriage and whenever they would flare up she was sent to spend time with her Aunt Pearl and Uncle Lee in Boulder, CO, and with them she first attended church and learned about God in their home. One day in 1925 the family stopped at a drug store near their home so Electa’s mother could buy some candy bars. While she was inside Walter drove away with his daughter and never looked back. The two eventually ended up in Los Angeles where four year old Electa was left alone in a hotel room while her father searched for investors to help launch his inventions. Someone finally noticed the solitary child standing in a doorway and called the authorities who took Electa to the Los Angeles Boys and Girls Home. Abandoned by her father who had previously convinced her that she had no mother, Electa was alone again, only now in the care of strangers. It may seem like an amazing coincidence that her mother’s brother-in-law, a physician who lived in the area was visiting the home and saw her name, but Electa knows God was watching over her. Her Uncle contacted Electa’s mother who, after finding she could not reclaim her daughter as a single mother, re-married and went to California to collect her now 8 year old child.

Home in Iowa was a small four room shack with no amenities on 15 acres of land about 20 miles from Sioux City. While Electa's stepfather farmed for his mother who lived nearby, her mother worked in an upscale dress shop where Ann Landers and “Dear Abby” were two of her regulars. Electa attended school in town and after classes her mother arranged to fill the hours with swimming, dance classes and ceramics lessons. She enjoyed those opportunities, but sadly, living so far from town, she had no close friends to spend time with her. Instead, at 14, she would take the wheel and drive the 20 miles home to relieve her exhausted mother after a long day at the dress shop.

While attending junior high, Electa’s great uncle left her $2000. Her parents felt the best use of those funds would be for her to attend the Mount Marty Girls School in Yankton, SD. Electa enjoyed the chance to spend more time associating with kids her age, loved outings to WNAX radio station, attending mass, taught herself to knit, but she made no permanent friends there. After completing her sophomore year Electa returned to Sioux City and graduated from Central High School in 1939. During those last two years of high school she finally made several good friends, including the daughter of a Methodist minister whose church she would occasionally attend when invited, and they stayed in touch for many years.

During the summer of her senior year, Electa met her husband while swimming at McCook Lake. He was working on a motor boat repair job and asked her to the boat races at Onawa, IA. With her mother’s permission, she went and the two began a year long courtship. After tracking down the justice of the peace in South Sioux City, NE who was attending a dance, the couple and her mother made their way back to Dakota City, NE and on September 24th, 1939, Electa married LuVern Cameron in her blue velvet dress made by a friend at the dress shop. After many lonely years, she now had hope for a home and a family of her own to care for.

During their first year Vern was employed as an auto mechanic for a car dealership while Electa worked as an elevator operator and then in a dime store. The joy of welcoming their first child, a son born in 1940, turned to sadness when he lived only a few hours. Electa is grateful that she had a chance to see him before he passed. Happily the couple welcomed their next child, Chuck, into the family in 1942.

Vern had branched into airplane mechanics at the Sioux City Air Base so in 1944 he was drafted into the Air Force and was immediately sent to join the Allied Forces in the CBI Theater (China-Burma-India). During the two years he was gone, Electa worked as a sales clerk in a dress shop, raised her young son with the help and support of her mother and stepfather, and dreamed of having another child, or may be two, so her son wouldn’t grow up alone like she did. Vern made it back from the war safely but Electa’s dream nearly ended with two more premature pregnancies. Finally, in 1947, a second son, Steve, was born. It had been psychologically difficult for her losing three little ones, but she was determined to love her surviving boys in a way she had never been loved. No one ever hugged or kissed her as a child. Her father had left her, her mother showed little physical warmth, and her Aunt Pearl was very strict. That lack of affection made it difficult for Electa to believe that anyone could ever really love her, and it even took three years before she accepted that husband Vern genuinely cared for her.

When Vern returned in 1946, the couple lived briefly in Jefferson, SD, then bought a small building on a lot in Sioux City and worked hard to make it a home. They bought a filling station and auto repair business with a partner and eventually branched out to include a truck stop with a repair shop as well. In 1957 they decided to move to Colorado but couldn’t find affordable housing and returned to Sioux City until 1959 when everything came together. Vern’s partnership dissolved, the house sold, and they made their move to Ft. Collins. Vern had taken a position as a mechanic for the local Chrysler dealership, then took the civil service exam and moved to a mechanics position with the motor pool at the University of Colorado. There he remained until he was declared disabled due Ataxia, a congenital nerve condition in 1979. Electa also began working for Colorado State University in 1960, took the CS exam in 1965, and continued in secretarial positions in their Economics and Environmental Health Services Departments. The couple had an active social life and enjoyed camping and hiking with their boys. In 1976 Electa was fortunate to travel to Geneva, Switzerland where she finally met her half brother, his son and grandsons. It was a timely trip as he passed away six months after their meeting.

In 1969 the couple purchased property in Pouder Canyon and in stages over a ten year period built the house that Electa had designed herself with the help of a professor in architecture from DU. They were finally approved to move into the home in 1980 and lived there for four years until Vern fell and it became necessary to move back to town and closer to doctors. During this time Electa found the Lord while attending 1st Christian Church in Ft. Collins and her faith began to really grow. She would need that strength when, prior to their divorce, Chuck’s wife brought him, in ill health, to their home so they could care for him. Vern was able to help care for his son while Electa worked to complete her 20 years at the University, but Chuck would pass in 1984. When Vern passed in 2003 after nine years in a nursing facility, Electa sold their condo and moved to a Senior Community, but rising costs would eventually require another move to a more affordable apartment. Soon after that tragedy struck again when youngest son, Steve, was badly injured during a robbery while working security and suffered brain damage. He too would depend on Electa’s help and care until also passing away in 2010.

Electa has experienced loneliness and sad times, but recognizes that God has watched over her and has seen many miracles in her life and family. She feels especially blessed to have been married to Vern for 64 years, and that her sons and mother all came to know the Lord. Despite being estranged for many years, she even had a chance to see and help her Dad before he died. Electa loves her new home in Springwood Senior Community surrounded by a caring staff and friendly neighbors, and is grateful for every one of her 95 years! In addition, she has found great joy in her volunteer jobs – 26 years at a hospital, 15 at the state welcome center, working for the mail brigade for non-profits, and has been a volunteer at every church she has ever attended. Indeed - at 4C’s CARES DAY – you would have found her helping cut string to tie up popcorn and cookie packages. She assists her granddaughter at a local church pre-school using her secretarial skills, loves her job helping with the bulletins every Friday, and attends the Ladies Bible Study every Tuesday morning! Electa would love to share her favorite verses with everyone. They are Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” and Ecclesiastes 3:1, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven…” When you meet this precious lady, greet her loud and clear and then give her a big hug. She would love that!