SOUTHWEST HARBOR and LITTLE CRANBERRY ISLAND Mary Stewart Baldwin, 80, died Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2007, at a Bangor hospital. She had recently undergone abdominal surgery and had a difficult recovery. Mary was born April 30, 1927, in Bar Harbor, where she was raised by her mother, Lottie Mae Stewart. Her maternal grandparents were Lionel Stewart and Mary Knowles Stewart. As a child, her standard poodle, Tovi, was a beloved companion and instilled a lifelong love of dogs, including various cairn terriers and a Chesapeake retriever, Flair. She enjoyed bicycling and recalled fondly how she and her mother would fetch icicles for making ice cream from along Sargeant Drive, Northeast Harbor. Mary graduated from Bar Harbor High School in 1945. During the 1940s, she worked as a lab assistant at The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor. She forged close friendships with Katrina Hummel and other research scientists. After World War II, she lived for a year in London, where she worked as a lab technician at St. Mary’s Hospital at Hampstead Heath. She worked as a research assistant at Children’s Memorial Hospital, Boston, before marrying Roger P. Baldwin of Chicago in 1954. Roger and Mary lived in Chicago, where he worked as an architect. She never lost her love of Maine and the Mount Desert Island landscape. The couple started summering on Little Cranberry Island in 1955. In 1967 the family moved to Lincoln, Mass. In Maine, she skippered the family’s launch, Sulmare, and took friends on picnics to Black Island and beyond. She was a capable sailor and was often at the tiller of the family’s puffin, Sarah Boyden. She also loved to beachcomb for driftwood and had a ritual of soaking her feet in the ocean. She was predeceased by her husband. She is survived by her son, Michael P. Baldwin and his wife, Ruth Baldwin, of Lucerne and Great Cranberry Island; and her daughter, Letitia Baldwin and her husband, Bentley Howard and their twin daughters, Skye and Blue, of Gouldsboro and Little Cranberry Island. A memorial service will be held 11:30 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 26, at Islesford Congregational Church, Little Cranberry Island. A reception will be at Islesford Neighborhood House. A special Beal & Bunker boat will depart 10 a.m. from Northeast Harbor town pier and return to the mainland 3 p.m. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Southwest Harbor Public Library, P.O. Box 157, Southwest Harbor, ME 04679 and Islesford Library, Islesford, ME 04646. Arrangements by Jordan-Fernald, 1139 Main St., Mount Desert. Condolences may be expressed at www.jordanfernald.com
MARY STEWART BALDWIN
