Grover H. Baldwin

1942 - 2022

News story
By Mark Zaborney
Blade Staff Writer

Grover H. Baldwin, a former University of Toledo professor and department chairman, who was a Vietnam War veteran and became a schoolteacher, a principal, and then an academic, died Monday in ProMedica Ebeid Hospice Residence. He was 79.

He had mantle cell lymphoma the last 10 years, his wife, Lynn Baldwin, said. Non-Hodgkin's lymphomas are among the types of cancer that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs presumes were caused by exposure to Agent Orange, which was used in the Vietnam War, according to the VA website.

Mr. Baldwin left UT in 1999 and the couple, formerly of Sylvania, moved to Olathe, Kan., so that Mrs. Baldwin could care for her father. They returned in 2011 and settled in the Old West End.

"We missed our family," Mrs. Baldwin said.

As Mr. Baldwin pursued advanced degrees, his goal was to be a professor, Mrs. Baldwin said. UT hired him in 1992 as the educational leadership department chairman. He had previously been at Pittsburg State University in Kansas and Indiana State University.

"My husband was a very good researcher," said Mrs. Baldwin, a retired principal. "He believed as I do that kids come first and we have to teach our teachers and principals how to put students first."

Mr. Baldwin's UT arrival came after several faculty retirements and amid a successful effort to maintain the department's status, said James Piper, a professor in the department who retired at the end of 1999.

"As department chairman, you serve two masters - the members of the department and you're trying to get enough resources from the college and the university to maintain successes," Mr. Piper said. "I thought he did fine. He was personable."

He found his work with doctoral students satisfying and helped them find positions afterward. He took part in a program that brought doctoral students from former Soviet republics to UT.

He also taught the intricacies of school law that aspiring administrators needed to know.

"He really enjoyed his time at UT," his wife said. "He was able to hire some remarkable faculty during his seven years there.

"He was very student oriented. He was a tough teacher, I can tell you," said Mrs. Baldwin, who was a master's student of his in Kansas. "But he would help you. It meant a lot to him to see people learn."

Grover Henry Baldwin was born Oct. 19, 1942, in Plainfield, N.J., to Norma and Grover Jacob Baldwin. He went to high school in Long Island, N.Y., and to Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, from which he received a bachelor's degree. He continued his studies at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, from which he had a master's degree and a doctorate in education.

He began his career as a fifth-grade teacher. He later was a middle school principal in Pennsylvania.

He was an Army sergeant and served in Vietnam from 1968 to 69.

"He did not talk about it. Most infantryman don't," Mrs. Baldwin said. He received a Bronze Star, but his wife didn't know why he was honored until she found paperwork after his death. She learned that he had seen flashes of distant enemy gunfire and with a map and compass was able to pinpoint where enemy forces were, information he relayed to command officers.

"It was very much like him to figure that all out," she said.

Mr. Baldwin pursued multiple pastimes, including fly fishing; he tied his own flies. He raced his sailboat on Lake Erie and crewed for a vessel competing in the Mills Race. He made cabinets and furniture.

"He was quite good at woodworking and designing and would make toys for the grandchildren," Mrs. Baldwin said. "He was kind and thoughtful and interested in new adventures and embellishing old adventures."

While in Kansas, he volunteered for the Midwest Innocence Project, motivated by "his sense of justice and his love for the law. That seemed to be a good match for him," she said.

Surviving are his wife, the former Lynn Deckard, whom he married in 1984; daughters Elizabeth Drembus and Candace Robinson; stepsons Andrew Fritz and Matthew Fritz; sister, Joyce Rudowski, and three grandsons.

Memorial services will begin at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the Walker Funeral Home, Sylvania Township, with visitation after 2 p.m.

The family suggests tributes to the ProMedica Hospice Memorial Fund, promedicaseniorcare.org/giving, or to the Midwest Innocence Project, themip.org.