Beginnings

Woodrow Wilson Baldwin was born to tough pioneer conditions in the still newly settled northern Texas panhandle. He grew up poor, in the midst of the Depression and the Dust Bowl. The strengths developed from this character-building childhood led to a distinguished academic career and significant social contributions in his retirement. He taught for ten years as an Assistant Professor at UCLA and for 26 years as Professor, and Department Chair, at Simmons College, a prestigious northeastern university. Upon his retirement, as a natural extension of his life, he founded the Prime Timers organization which now has over 70 chapters world wide. The scope of this biographical sketch is merely Woody Baldwin’s early years, his youth, academic and retirement years, and the shared life with his long term partner. This sketch can not attempt to provide a detailed history of Baldwin’s founding of Prime Timers, and the growth since it’s inception, which is a project in itself. Hopefully this paper will give the reader some insight into the hero of the story, known affectionately as “Woody.”

We begin with a few names, as a way to place the young boy “Woodrow” within the context of the 1920s. The surname “Baldwin” was relatively new to the northern panhandle of Texas. We do know that Woodrow’s mother, Emma Leora (Ledia) Gray was born in 1884 and came to Texas from Tennessee. His father, Claude Horace Baldwin, was born in 1882 and moved to Texas from Georgia. Both parents left school at the end of their elementary grades to work on their respective family and neighbors farms. The availability of work and a life of their own may be what drove each of them further West. They met in Blue Ridge, Texas (about 41 miles northeast of Dallas) and were married there on April 1, 1900. They lived the first 7 years of their marriage there, giving birth to two of the children. They lived in Lockney, Texas for a time, and several other locations, giving birth to three additional children. It was not uncommon for pioneer farmers to start families when they were still very young and to raise a large family. Woodrow believes they moved around so much because, although his father was a farmer, he was not a very good one. Census records show that about 35% of Americans in the 1920s were considered full-time farmers.  

As to how he came to be named Woodrow Wilson the hero of the story comments: “I guess my parents just ran out of originality in naming their kids. My older siblings are named, Vada [Germanic meaning “famous ruler”], Zada [Arabic meaning “prosperous or increasing”, Obert [Germanic meaning “famous for his inheritance” and Leora [Hebrew meaning “my light”].” From the interviews with Woodrow apparently his mother finally put her foot down on the biblical names and insisted on something more modern for her fifth child. Woodrow further comments; “I guess my parents admired President Woodrow Wilson although I never heard it discussed. I teased my mother that I could never lie about my age because I was born in the last year of his presidency.” Prior to 1912 the name would have been unrecognized. Of the most Popular 1000 Names of 1920, from Social Security card applications for births that occurred in the United States, the name Woodrow ranked 67th. Woodrow Wilson is consistently ranked as one of the top ten American Presidents. One can only speculate what Woodrow’s parents admired most about this president. Perhaps it was because he declared the first National Mother’s Day in 1914?  During his childhood the name Woodrow was used by his family and his peers, but his mother always called him “Sonny.”  

Woodrow claims to know very little about his grandparents. One must assume they were farmers too. The maternal grandparents are buried in Blue Ridge, Texas. Woodrow’s paternal grandparents are buried in Lockney, Texas. We know very little about that branch of the family. Lockney, Texas, is still a small rural community — near Lubbock.  

As far as where Woodrow’s ancestors came from, he comments; 

I don't know (nor find it important) what nationality I am. It is not as important in Texas as it is in other parts of the country. When I grew up, there were Mexicans, blacks (they were politely called “Negros” in those days), Jews, Catholics and Christians. Beyond that, nothing else mattered. I was taught by my mother to not have prejudices and to this day, I don't.

To put his birth in context one needs to look at the events of the year 1920. This is the year Prohibition began, and the year a woman’s right to vote was passed. In Europe, Hitler presented his National Socialist agenda in Munich and in Geneva the first meeting of the League of Nations was held. In New York the infamous Wall Street bombing occurred in front of J.P Morgan, which killed 38 and injured 400. The underlying causes of the Great Depression were gathering momentum, and would soon coincide with the disaster of the Dust Bowl.

One can also look at things we take for granted today and which did not exist when he was born.  At a Christmas party, in his later years, Woodrow surprised the young children of his hosts when he noted that he grew up before Scotch Tape existed. It was only invented in 1930. He had to explain to the children how one wrapped Christmas packages with white glue and string.  It may be noted he grew up before bubblegum (1928), the Yo-Yo (1929), and even Penicillin (approved by the FDA in 1928) and frozen foods (1929). Traffic lights were only invented the year he was born, the first being in Detroit, Michigan, and not ubiquitous in the US for many years. Woodrow Wilson Baldwin was born before nuclear bombs. In Amarillo Texas in the 1920’s and 1930’s they didn’t lock the doors of their homes and as children were never bothered with many of the fears placed upon the lives of the youngsters of today.

Our Hero’s Early Years

Woodrow Wilson Baldwin was born in Dumas, Texas on March 28, 1920. The man who developed the town was named Louis Dumas and the town, formed in the late 1800’s, was his namesake. The panhandle was one of the last areas of the State of Texas to be developed from the raw prairie. In the late 1800s the great migration westward was still ongoing, and this generation of early settlers encountered very difficult conditions. The town was given little chance to survive, but the pioneers were hardy stock and they stuck it out. What began as a dusty crossroads on the prairie beneath the “big blue sky” and above the Canadian River, north and west of Amarillo began to grow. The small village of Dumas’ population was only 571 persons in the 1920’s.  

At Woodrow’s birth, his mother was 36 and his father 38. Woodrow was the fifth child, with 18 years separating him from the oldest sister. He was born 16 months after World War I ended. His father did not serve in WW I, having been exempted by being a farmer. At the age of three, Woodrow says, “ I talked the family into moving to Amarillo, where it might be possible to have indoor plumbing.” In truth the farm was a disaster for the family.  The land was incapable of producing a crop to support a family of five and his father was not a very good farmer to start with.  The farm also lacked electricity.  As a note of interest, Woodrow said he returned to the farm many years later and found the land occupied by 37 oil wells. On moving into town his father began work for a farm implement company (John Deere), beginning in 1923 in Amarillo, a town of about 22,000 people at that time. His mother was mainly a housewife, although the responsibilities in those times were more time consuming than in the modern day. Woodrow stayed in Amarillo until he was 20, and the population was up to 61,450. The family stayed on in the Amarillo area until Woodrow’s mother died in 1966.

The only sibling that Woodrow actually grew up with was his sister Leora who was 6 years older than he. The three other siblings were married, gone and beginning their own families by the time he was 5. Woodrow describes himself as a, “brat of a brother and I don't know why my sister did not kill me.” He says there was enough difference in ages that they had little in common and fought constantly. Because of that, usually, when one of them was spanked the other one got it also. He wonders if sometimes one would start a fight simply because it gave them such pleasure to see their mother discipline the other one. After Leora left home to go into nurses training, she and Woodrow became closer and closer until in their later years they were not only siblings, but best friends. He says, “I got along fine with the older ones, but maybe that was because they didn't have to live with me.”

“I loved them all. There was 18 years difference between my oldest sister and myself, so I was an uncle at 4 (although that nephew was killed in World War II) and a great uncle at 21.” All Woodrow's siblings are dead, of course. Vada died in l983, Leora in l984, Obert in l997 and Zada 1998. He has also outlived the oldest niece and two nephews. When Woody was asked the question, “What one word would you use to describe your life?” he answered “Lucky!” He says “We were poor, but full of love. I always say my friend "up there" must like me because I have been so lucky in life.” He has retained this humble demeanor his entire life.

To quote Woodrow again; “As I look back, "poor" meant a lot but I was too young to know that (thank goodness). I never had more than one pair of shoes at a time and they were worn until the toes wore out from my kicking cans.” His brother Obert bought him the first pair of long pants and his sister Leora bought the first two-piece underwear. Here the author of this sketch must digress again to define the times.  When interviewing him for this sketch I, the author, jokingly asked him if the first underwear were boxers or briefs.  Of course I didn’t realize he grew up before the introduction of the “Jockey” brief, in 1935.  Even the two-piece underwear referred to was a new concept. Prior to that, underclothing for boys and men was a single union-suit style, with long legs and sleeves for winter and short for summer. In this decade, companies also began selling buttonless drawers fitted with an elastic waistband. These were the first boxer shorts, which were named for their resemblance to the shorts worn by professional fighters. My jokingly asked question forced me to remember again that he is 89 years old at the time of this writing and grew up in a world very different than my youth, and even more different than today’s world, where children accept the Internet as always available and Band-aids as something existing since the beginning of time.  

His sister Leora was instrumental in getting him new pants when he went through puberty as the pants, that he’d had for years, were inadequate for his growth. Woody remembers Leora telling his mother that Woody “had to have some pants that fit!” He continued, in the same vein, “I guess I had changes of shirts, underwear, socks, but not many.” They were very poor and hard-working, to the point that simple needs like clothing were often overlooked. One must remember textiles were still expensive compared to wages.  Clothing was not abundantly available.  No “Ross Dress for Less” stores or Costco or discount outlets. Although they were poor in material wealth he says they never went hungry.  Even if the meal was just a mush of beans with some corn bread, there was plenty.

Woodrow learned the values of work at a young age and those values served him well throughout his entire life. His mother was quite a gardener and had grown a huge bed of petunias. She would bundle them in newspaper, and young Woodrow would go from door to door selling them (at 12 plants for 5 cents). He remembers making $9.80 one summer from the flowers. Also he sold Liberty, Physical Culture and True Story magazines door to door. From the magazines, Woody made 27 cents a week. That was high finance for a 9 or 10 year old kid in those days. He doesn’t remember ever reading those magazines though and claims, as a youth, he wasn’t much of a reader. Still later, when he was 13, he worked full time (8 hours a day) at the Tenth Street Drug Store in Amarillo making 25 cents per hour and was going to school full time. He said during the interviews for this writing: “I can't imagine now how I did it but I was young and we needed the money.”  He maintained this job for many years while attending school full time. Woody throughout his life defines himself by being a hard worker, proud of his efforts to rise above adversity, and gives credit to the early years of “hardship” for molding this ethic.

Woodrow’s family were Southern Baptists so they were not allowed to dance, have playing cards in the house or wear "skimpy" swim suits in public, etc. He was not allowed to see movies because his mother had the belief that they were somehow sinful. He only saw his first movie at the age of 16 years old, the 1936 “Whoppie” with Eddie Kantor. As a child he could not play in the yard-sprinklers with the other children during the summer heat because dressing down to shorts was considered sinful.  He never learned to swim for the same reason and although he took 7 courses in later years, 3 university and 4 red cross, he still can’t swim. But he adds he has learned how to dance and even though he can now gamble without fear, he worked too hard to make the money and doesn’t want to lose control of it by gambling with it.

The Baldwins were in the heart of the Bible belt, so religion was something one had to have; mostly from family pressure. At the church young Woodrow did participate in the plays and keeps a photo from his six year’s old “Tom Thumb Wedding” role. A non-speaking part. He was in the church chorus but was required to “sing” at the lowest volume possible. Woody claims to have never had any musical talent. When he was in grade school, they did an operetta every year and he says his singing was so bad the teacher told him just to move his lips. Woody refers to himself as the original “Johnny One Note.”  

Although the transmission of TV and radio signals began in the year of his birth, 1920, it did not reach broad public usage till later. He remembers the first time he heard radio at a neighbors house when he was six or seven years old.  In those day the radios did not have speakers. One listened through headphones. That evening the big event was the world’s heavyweight title fight between defending champion Jack Dempsey and challenger Gene Tunney. Held at the Sesquicentennial Municipal Stadium on September 23, 1926 in Philadelphia. Tunney won, and to this day,  boxing fans argue whether Dempsey could or should have won the fight. TV did not enter into commercial availability till during the Second World War.

In later years, as movies were more available to our young hero, Woodrow had his first "crush" — on the actor Clark Gable. In his innocence, he remarked once in his sister Leora's presence that Gable "paralyzed me."  She retold the story, as she thought it was funny. At that stage in their lives kids knew nothing of homosexuality and having that kind of interest in a movie star was not odd. Kids were not as aware of the complicated possibilities of adult romantic encounters in the 1930’s.