Sunday, January 30, 2000
Living legacy for Baker
By Cathy Willoughby
Staff Writer
Due to one family's generosity, a living legacy will remind students of Heidelberg College, and residents of Tiffin, of the work of one of the college's past members.
David Baker, recently retired director of Heidelberg's nationally renowned Water Quality Lab, now has a wooded area along the Sandusky River that will be named for him.
"Baker's Woods,'' located just past Pioneer Mill restaurant at the corner of John Street and Riverside Drive, is a narrow strip of land that belonged to Sandusky residents Gladys and Tom Warren.
Baker was interested in the section when he, along with other citizens, were attempting to clean-up along the river many years ago. To receive permission to clean the private property along the water front, Baker contacted Warren. In the course of their conversation, he learned that the land was inherited from her sister, who had taken several classes at Heidelberg, and that the Warrens had always intended for it to eventually be deeded to the college.
The Warrens held on to the property, according to Lee Martin, Heidelberg's director of development, allowing it to grow back to its natural state. After Baker approached her to donate the land to the college, the development office at the college initiated negotiations for the property, which took three years. There were several conditions to the gift of the property to the college &emdash; that they could never sell it or use it for development, that it would always be left in its natural state, and that it would be named in memory of her sister and her husband.
"I initiated contact with the Development House, that then contacted Gladys,'' Baker recalled. "I didn't hear any more about it, until we were all at a Christmas dinner, eating at the Golden Crown.''
Baker also lives along the river on Riverside Drive, and he said that night Pete Richard, new director of the lab, suggested that the group wanted to go to Baker's house and show him something.
"When we got there, there were some other people from the college around,'' Baker recalled. "And they started to say, 'Let's go over and look by the river.' So my wife and I went down, and down by the mailboxes there was a makeshift sign, that said, Bakers Wood, Riparian Forest. I was just flabbergasted.''
The wedge-shaped piece of land, which Baker said practically abuts against Pioneer Mill, will be a nice place for students to study water resources.
Richards agreed. "It has the potential for being a site that biology classes could take field trips to,'' he said, "to study the ecology of forests or the river itself for stream ecology.''
"It's a Riparian forest, which means water's edge,'' Martin explained. "For a biologist, it's just a wonderful piece of land, with natural flora growing there. It's a nice gift to the college from the Warrens.
"I wanted to have the land when he retired,'' Martin said of Baker's surprise. "Then I thought the next best thing was Christmas. I knew the folks at the Water Lab were taking him out for lunch. So I approached Pete and asked him to kind of drive by, and I'll have a sign up.''
"While we were there, a bald eagle soared right by us, and I thought it was a good omen,'' Baker said. "And this takes another section of the woods along the river and moves it to a protected status.''