Local News

Writer, golfer, father: Bauer remembered by family, colleagues

MARIETTA - Although service to his country took him to the skies over Europe, Ted Bauer always called the Marietta area home. It's where he attended school, raised a family, chronicled daily life and history, and loved and shared the game of golf.

And on Wednesday, it's where he passed away at the age of 104.

"He was a very, very great man," said his son, Mark Bauer. "He was as honest and sincere as they come. I don't think he ever met a stranger in his life."

Bauer enlisted in the military following the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor and served in the U.S. Army Air Corps a bombardier aboard the B-17 Flying Fortress, completing 35 bombing runs. He used the GI Bill to enroll at The Ohio State University, changing his major from botany to journalism after a friend told him he was a good writer.

He was hired as a reporter covering Marietta by The Parkersburg News before eventually becoming a staff writer at The Marietta Times in 1953. He worked there 34 years, later serving as city editor and retiring as the editorial page editor.

"If you read an article from him, it was the absolute truth," Mark Bauer said. "You make your conclusions from his writing. He was not biased."

Ted Bauer's daughter, Cynthia Winning, and her husband, Ted Winning, recalled how the elder Bauer's inquisitiveness wasn't something he left in the newsroom. Cynthia Winning said her father would strike up conversations with people while walking home from work.

"He enjoyed ... not talking but listening, asking those probing questions, listening to what people had to tell him," she said. "He just liked humans, and he loved their stories."

"When he looked at people, he'd look at them and ask them questions about who they were, where they're from," her husband said.

Bauer was also a student of the community's history, a topic he continued to write about for the Times after his 1985 retirement and something he shared with other journalists along the way.

"I valued his wisdom and perspectives about people and place," said Lisa D. Lenoir, a former Times reporter and now a professor at Indiana University Bloomington. "My fondest memory of him occurred during a major flood event in the early 1990s. He was in the newsroom, and he guided me through the coverage. As a newcomer to the area, I didn't know about the nature and history of floods, along the Ohio River. ... He offered me the needed context, which helped me write the story with more authority.

"To this day, I can credit Ted for teaching me how to cover a flood - noting when it peaks and when it crests," she said.

Scott Long was an 18-year-old college freshman and part-time sports writer at the Times when he met Bauer, who was retired but came in to the newsroom to do research for his column.

"As someone who was passionate about journalism and history, I tried to talk to Ted each visit," said Long, who now lives in Florida.

When Long graduated and went to work at the newspaper full-time, he rented an apartment from Bauer, who lived next door.

"Now I got to see and talk to him every day. And he owned a driving range, so I got to hit a bucket of balls whenever I wanted. So many memories were made in that apartment," he said.

After Long left Ohio, he spotted Bauer about once a year when the episode of "Unsolved Mysteries" on which he appeared to discuss a case near Marietta was rerun. When Long traveled back to Marietta for meetings of an advisory committee he was on, he would often walk to his old Front Street apartment.

"One time, Ted was where he almost always was, on the sidewalk in front of his house. Before I got a chance to say, 'Hey Ted! Remember me?' he shook my hand and said, 'What brings you back to town, Scott?'" Long said. "That a guy well into his 90s still remembered the kid who used to occasionally bounce rent checks made me feel beyond special."

Parkersburg resident Nancy Taylor got to know Bauer as a golfer and driving range operator before later becoming his colleague at the Times. She described him as "affable.

"That's a one-word way to say easy-going, good-natured, easy to talk to," Taylor said. At the newspaper, "he was still affable! In a newsroom, that's pretty amazing."

Bauer's grandson, Brad, followed in his footsteps, working as a reporter at the Times for several years.

"I looked up to him my entire life. He was really excited for me when I decided to attend college and study journalism," Brad said. "I would go to him all the time if I had a difficult story or had questions. ... He was a wonderful resource."

When Brad eventually made a career change, he expected a hard conversation. But his grandfather supported him then as well.

"He had a way about him to where, if you had a problem, just like a news story, he could break it down, easy to understand, to where you could make a good decision," Brad said.

His guidance wasn't just limited to journalism. Mark Bauer, Brad's father, said he learned a great deal while working at the driving range.

"My dad lived and breathed golf. He would play golf just about every day. He'd go out to the country club, play 18 holes, walk, carry the bag, no cart," Mark said. "He loved teaching people to play the game. ... He knew his stuff."

In 1986, Ted Bauer was named the Civitan Citizen of the Year Award in 1986 for outstanding achievement and unselfish service in the betterment of the community.

"He really cared about the people in this town and the town itself. He loved just being a part of it," Brad Bauer said.

Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com.