Memorial Service for Mary Baird
Saturday, April 30, 2016 - 2:00pm
Mary Harriet Chapman Baird
Mary passed away on April 4, 2016, at 93. Mary approached all she did in life with kindness, humor, intelligence, grace, and a leavening sense of adventure.
She was born in 1922 in Karuizawa, Japan, to Ernest and Katherine Chapman, Presbyterian Missionaries, and grew up in the town of Shingu with her sisters, Betty and Ernestine. She was taught by her mother until the age of 13, when she traveled to Pyongyang, Korea, to attend the Pyongyang Foreign School. After graduating in 1940, she returned to the United States to enroll at the University of California at Berkeley. Mary graduated in 1944 with a degree in Oriental Languages and Far Eastern Studies. During school, Mary also taught Japanese as a teaching assistant and assisted the war effort by teaching Japanese to the Army Signal Corps.
After graduation, Mary attended the San Francisco Theological Seminary and worked in the Seminary President's office. While there, Mary met and married, J. Arthur Baird. She received her Master's in Divinity in 1948, and in 1949 accompanied Arthur to Edinburgh, Scotland, where he was studying for his Ph.D. They both served there at the Corstorphine Old Parish Church.
Mary had shown a taste for adventure at a young age, climbing Mount Fuji twice during her youth in Japan. In 1951, Mary and Arthur travelled the nearly 10,000 miles from Edinburgh to Jerusalem; a trip that took almost four months by motorcycle, spanning nations still devastated by World War II. Their time in Jerusalem led directly to the Study Travel Seminars in Israel and the West Bank offered to students at The College of Wooster every fourth year from 1970 to 1983. Mary and Arthur, with their sons, Andrew and Paul, also spent 1978-79 at the Ecumenical Institute for Advanced Theological Studies in Jerusalem, and led two College of Wooster Alumni tours of Israel.
In 1952, having returned from Scotland, Mary and Arthur were called to a church in Bernie, Calif. In 1954, Mary and Arthur came to the The College of Wooster, where Arthur taught for 32 years. During those years, Mary held positions as assistant to the College Pastor, Acting Dean of Women (during which time she became known as "The Great Liberator" when she raised the freshman women's curfew from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.), and adjunct Professor of Japanese. One of Mary's greatest services to the College community was to be host and surrogate mother for countless hundreds of College of Wooster students.
For more than 20 summers, Mary perfected the art of "life aboard a sailboat" as she managed two growing boys, and often a dog, cruising the East Coast, and most particularly, the Maine coast. The home away from home was a 30-foot sailboat, built by Arthur.
Mary was a member of Westminster Presbyterian Church for more than 60 years, where she advised the youth fellowship, taught Sunday school, was an elder, president of the women's association, and served on the board of trustees. She was an active member of PEO and the Thursday Club, where she was known for regaling her fellow members with stories as well as insightful writing about a number of current topics.
Surviving are sons, Andrew and Paul, Andrew's wife, Whitney, and two children, Susannah and Graham, and Paul's fiancee, Tracie Goin, and his daughter, Lauren. She is also survived by her sisters, Betty Sterns and Ernestine Hoyt.
Memorial services will be Saturday, April 30 at 2 p.m. at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 353 E. Pine St., Wooster. A reception will follow.
Gifts in her remembrance can be made in her name to the Westminster Presbyterian Church, 353 E. Pine St., Wooster 44691 ; to support its ministry to youth and the College community (please donate to the Memorial Fund noting that it is in honor of Mary Baird); or to LifeCare Hospice 1900 Akron Road, Wooster 44691.
Published: April 6, 2016 Daily Record
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