BOOK REVIEW
My Name Was Mushroom Author Wendy Baker shares her experiences as a young teen lured into a commune, her valiant emergence back into society and her path to becoming a Malibu business executive.
✎ written by Barbara Burke
It was one of those moments when someone you know shares a detail about their life that totally surprises and intrigues you. “Please read my new book, My Name was Mushroom — My Life as a Teenage Runaway in the Source Family Commune,” Malibu’s Wendy Baker said. What a journey! When Wendy was just 12 years old and then named Wendy Gossard, she met Bart Baker, who has been her husband for decades. Wendy was mesmerized by the crystal blue eyes and magnetism of Bart’s father, the very charismatic Jim Baker, known as Yahowah, who was the six-foot-five towering patriarch of the Source Family, a spiritual group composed of young people who considered Yahowah their father. Wendy Baker’s book takes readers on her journey during the 1960s and 1970s, describing love-ins in Hollywood and on Sunset Avenue, and gatherings at The Source Restaurant, Yahowah’s business, and one of the country’s first health food restaurants on the Sunset Strip. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were regular customers as were Warren Beatty and Mar-
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lon Brando. Woody Allen gave a nod to the restaurant in his classic, “Annie Hall,” wherein he sarcastically orders mashed yeast and alfalfa sprouts. Wendy’s alcoholic single mother had four young daughters and she was distracted, exhausted, and overworked, leaving home life for Wendy and her sisters challenging and intolerable. Wendy describes her family environment as a mixture of abuse and neglect. “She wasn’t a hands-on mother,” Wendy said. “Mine
YAHOWAH Jim Baker (“Yahowah”) surrounded by Wendy Baker and other Source Family members.
was a childhood without guidance.” Ultimately, when she was only 14 years old, she escaped from her biological family and joined The Source Family, inveigled by the group’s seemingly boundless love and freedom and enamored with the music played by family members. One of Wendys biological sisters, Marci, joined the commune and, like all of its members, became inculcated by its groupthink mentality, which included meditations, yoga, vegetarianism, and rituals. In the Source Family, Wendy was named Mushroom. Her sister was named Blessing. Immersed in the cult’s communal living and intrigued by Yahowah’s teachings, Wendy and others in the commune kept to themselves, calling outsiders Pisceans from The Maya. The group relocated several times, ultimately leaving California and settling in Lahaina, Maui. There, 16-year-old Wendy gave birth to a daughter by another commune member, Starman. An elder woman in the commune named their child Stardust. Ultimately, the Source Family relocated again to the Big Island where they lived through a large earthquake and were
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