Albert (& Helen) Baily

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Albert L.Baily,Jr.^[1] was a teacher at Westtown School, a prominent Quaker boarding school in Chester County, Pennsylvania, from 1921 to 1955. Born in 1890, Baily was the son of Albert Baily, Sr., and Eliza Montell Lycett Baily. He graduated from Haverford College in 1912. In 1914, he married Helen Morton Smedley.

"In 1921^[2], Albert L.Baily,Jr. began teaching French, botany, biology and Bible at Westtown School, where he also developed the arboretum, supervised the building of an outdoor theater and promoted music and drama. During the Depression he and his wife operated a student work camp in Maine, where they also helped organize a fish freezing plant. During World War II, the Bailys opened their home to conscientious objectors. Mr. Baily taught at Pendle Hill [Quaker Center for Study and Contemplation in Wallingford, Pa.] for several years and, after retiring, he and his wife opened a shop in their Parkerville home where they sold American Indian crafts they had obtained in their travels across the country.

"Baily was very interested in studies about the New Testament Gospels. His interpretation, teachings, and writings about the gospels, such as Dramatizations From the Life of Jesus (1964), were very much influenced by his teacher, Henry Burton Sharman (1865-1953). Sharman published his own parallel version of the New Testament Gospels in 1917, which he titled Records of the Life of Jesus.

"Mr. Baily wrote numerous papers and studies, including... Saltwater Ballads and Some Not So Salt (1971). He was on the board of Cheyney State College, the committee operating Westtown School, and the Associated Executive Committee on Indian Affairs, and was an elder of the Westtown Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends."

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