SO LONG, MANY THANKS, SNO JO HEARTY WELCOMER BID FOND FAREWELL.

Byline: Bettie Rencoret Special to the Daily News

LANCASTER - Sno Jo Dunnagan Baker would have loved what they said about her at her funeral on Friday the 13th, but she'd have downplayed the kudos.

In her Kentucky drawl, she'd have claimed there was nothing unusual about anything she did, yet strangers took to her like Pooh Bear to a honeycomb.

Everyone could tell within seconds after they met her that she was a friend in the making.

On July 13, those friends remembered her talent for making them feel welcome, her warmth, her fashion sense, her love of a good joke and a good party.

They laughed about how she and her good friend Maggie Bohman once put on a fashion show at the Lancaster Loyal Order of the Moose Lodge that had the crowd in stitches. They had all the men in drag.

One of those models recalled Sno Jo's indomitable sense of humor.

After swimming at one of Sno Jo's many pool parties, he went into the house to get dressed. He found his clothes and started to put on his pants.

``I couldn't get my right leg through the bottom opening. It had been sewn shut,'' he laughed. ``And when I started to put on my shirt, she'd stitched one of the sleeves closed, too.''

Almost every Friday night she had dinner at the Moose Lodge, and almost every lunchtime she could be found at the Antelope Valley Senior Center selling meal tickets at the door.

People often asked about her name.

Sno Jo was the youngest of five children born to Ernest and Grace Holbrook. When they were searching for a name, their neighbor Margaret promised if they'd let her name the new baby she would send her presents and cards for every birthday and Christmas.

``Well, you know, her name was Margaret, so they thought that was a pretty good bargain, and they agreed,'' Sno Jo said. ``But Margaret had two young daughters, one named Sno and the other named Jo.''

As a stranger to the Antelope Valley back in 1956, she took it upon herself to find out all about the place, the schools, shopping areas, entertainment, clubs, churches and anything else she could dig up. Then she visited newcomers armed with all that information to help them get acclimated.

She especially liked to ferret out the people who were arriving from Niagara Falls, N.Y. Among those families were Harold and Doris Dawson, and Bob and Dodie Case.

That was the year that the Crescent Carbon Co. plant was in full swing out in Rosamond and many key workers were sent here from the East Coast facility.

Her husband, Charlie Dunnagan, came to be foreman of the bake room, and Sno Jo knew what it was like to come to a place so different.

``You can't imagine what it was like to come from all the moisture and greenery of the Northeast to this hot, dry, godforsaken desert,'' she said. ``It was quite a shock then, but you know, the longer we stayed the more it grew on us. It's home now.''

Sno Jo and Charlie met in their hometown, Ashland, Ky., and after he left there for Niagara Falls to take a job with the carbon company, he sent for her. They were married by a justice of the peace.

Their first baby died, but a son, Danny, came a short time later, and then Brian.

The boys were 6 and 2 when the Dunnagans came to Lancaster. Not long after they arrived, Sno Jo gave birth to daughter Terry.

After 20 years of marriage, Charlie died. Later Sno Jo met Doug Baker, a recent widower, at Parents Without Partners, and they hit it off right away. He liked to have a good time as much as she did.

He won the hearts of all her children. They thought of him as a second father.

``If my dad could have come back to Earth, it would have been to shake Doug's hand and tell him thank you,'' Terry said. ``He was the kindest, gentlest person we could have hoped for in a stepfather.''

They were married 26 years before Doug died and Sno Jo was widowed once again.

Over the years, Sno Jo's health declined. She suffered from diabetes and leukemia and was hospitalized in April. When she was released she was told to take it easy, but that wasn't her style, and she went back to her volunteer job at the senior center ticket table.

``You don't understand,'' she said when her doctor protested. ``I have to work for my own benefit.''

She last worked at the center on June 28, but two days later suffered a massive stroke. Ten days later on Terry's birthday, she died.

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Photo:

Sno Jo Dunnagan Baker, 79, right, joins good friend Doris Dawson Critser, 85, in one of her favorite activities, a party.