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Any photos not otherwise credited are from the personal collection of Frank Passic, Albion Historian.
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Morning Star, September 25, 1994, pg. 16 I do hope you are making plans to attend my guided tour of the south portion of Riverside Cemetery on Sunday, October 2 at 1 p.m. We will be meeting at the Veteran’s Memorial, and then will make the trek to 50 selected interments or mostly 20th century Albion individuals. Bring the whole family, and plan to have an enjoyable afternoon together. One of the gravesites we will be visiting on the tour will be that of Joseph A. Baldwin (1895-1949). Baldwin served as a state senator in the 1930s and 1940s, and was a 1919 graduate of Albion College. Baldwin was a co-partner with his brother Richard, and Walter S. Kennedy in the Albion Recorder, serving as its business manager. He also was president of the group that raised the funds to erect the Parker Inn Hotel in the 1920s. He became interested in law, and attended law school in Washington, D. C. He opened his law office in Albion in 1933 during the Great Depression, and in 1934 ran for the state senate and won. He was the first Albion resident to be elected to the state senate in 78 years. He served until 1936 when he was defeated, and then ran again in 1938 and won, serving then until 1943 when he left to serve in World War II. Baldwin served in many capacities in Lansing, Calhoun County, and in Albion. A Republican, Baldwin was known for his championship of Americanism, in the days of the fear of Communism during the rule of Joseph Stalin. Baldwin was co-sponsor of a measure requiring public school teachers to take anti-communist oaths. He also co-sponsored a constitutional amendment which permitted admission of firearms as evidence in criminal court cases. Baldwin died here in Albion in January, 1949, and is buried in Riverside Cemetery, just east of the Veteran’s Memorial on the south side of the cemetery. His gravesite will be the first stop on our tour October 2. From our Historical Notebook this week we present a photograph of Joseph A. Baldwin. 
Joseph A. Baldwin Next: PEOPLE WHO NEVER DIED All text copyright, 2024 © all rights reserved Frank Passic
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