By Thea Jarvis

Joan Baker first met Archbishop John Francis Donoghue when the priest was an assistant at Holy Face Church in Great Mills, Md., and Mrs. Baker was a sixth grader at Little Flower, the parish school. She remembers Father Donoghue's easy availability and down to earth manner.

"Whenever the kids had recess, he and (pastor) Father Lewis were always there. They would walk over and mingle with the kids and be in and out of the school, the classrooms," said Mrs. Baker, the fifth of Joyce Mayor's eight children, now the mother of two college-aged daughters.

Father Donoghue soon became a familiar figure at her childhood home, often stopping for dinner or spending time with her father, who was ill.

"He was a good friend to me and to our family," she recalled. "He did a lot to help my father."

The priest activated a youth program at Holy Face that was a meaningful part of Mrs. Baker's life.

"The teenage years are not easy," she said. Father Donoghue gave teens another option, "something else in their lives at a time when they needed it. That was important to me."

Describing herself as "one of the most unhappy, miserable teenagers I know of," Mrs. Baker said the approachable Father Donoghue helped put "some levity in my life."

"If he gave me anything, he taught me not to take myself too seriously," she said. "He puts people at ease and makes it easy for you to talk to him. He's a very good listener, never judgmental."

Although Father Donoghue left Holy Face when Mrs. Baker was a high school sophomore, he maintained strong ties to her and her family.

"If I needed spiritual direction, I could pick up the phone," she said. "He was honest. He had his opinions and would tell you if you were off-base."

When Mrs. Baker's father died in her senior year, Father Donoghue, then working at the chancery, returned to Great Mills for the funeral and continued to lend emotional support to grateful family members. After high school, Mrs. Baker worked in Washington, D.C., where the two friends kept in close touch.

Father Donoghue was like "a member of the family" when Mrs. Baker married and moved to northern Virginia, she remembered, meeting her and her husband for dinner, attending their daughters' first communion celebrations, stopping at the house for a visit or a home-cooked meal. As his ecclesiastical responsibilities grew, Father Donoghue continued to be a friend, a counselor, "easy to know -- very personable and down to earth, real people."

Mrs. Baker doesn't expect the importance of the archbishop's new duties to change him. Her friend of 32 years is "kind, loyal, humble," she said. "The same person I knew as an assistance at Holy Face is the same person I know now."

Moreover, she believes, the early goals young Father Donoghue set for himself are those he still cherishes.

"He went into the priesthood with the idea of serving people" and remains, "a man of the people. He never lost sight of that," said Mrs. Baker.

"He's got a big job ahead of him and he's going to need a lot of help and support. He'll earn it."