MANSFIELD — Clarence Baughman, 65, believes in living life – and to him, that means helping others live better lives.
Over the past few years, Baughman has helped serve food to the people in need at Salvation Army, St. Peter’s Catholic Church, First Congregational Church, Main Street First United Methodist, First English Lutheran, St. Luke’s Point of Grace and the Mosaic Church.
He also helps distribute food from the food bank at Grace Episcopal Church on Wednesdays and Thursdays, which serves 500 to 600 people per week and is the second largest Cleveland Food Bank operation in the state.
Associate Rector Daniel Orr of Grace Episcopal says that Baughman’s patience is extraordinary.
“Clarence has a pressured job working in crowded hallways,” Orr said. “He has never lost his temper or gotten mad.”
Baughman greets individuals coming into the pantry with both seriousness and joviality, depending on the nature of the need. He hands first-come, first-serve number tags to each person and ushers them to benches and chairs to wait for their number to be called.
Patrons are called in groups of 25 into a fellowship hall area to be registered into a database and then pass a row of tables to pick up the food that is allocated for them.
“Clarence does so different many things. He’ll create forms and make schedules,” Orr said. “He keeps a history of the food pantry. He takes temperature readings in the walk-in refrigerator and freezer. He absorbs all the details. Clarence is well known inside all the pantry circles. We have abundant volunteers – full-time volunteers who never take a vacation – and they are what keeps us afloat.
“Clarence even showed up to volunteer after falling down and getting injured. There are a lot of people who are enormously dedicated, and he is certainly a gift to us.”
Rector Joe Ashby, of Grace Episcopal, had more accolades for the active volunteer.
“Clarence is a constant,” he said. “He is the first person people see when they come in the door. I’ve been here 12 years and Clarence is part of our staff.
“This is a food pantry where the neighborhood takes care of one another. I’ve never encountered as many committed, faithful and dedicated volunteers. This is what we do here, create community. Food is secondary. And this is our Christian opportunity to be and do what we say we are.”
Baughman intimately knows the many needs of a community.
“I see people from all kinds of walks of life,” Baughman said. “Life is what you make it. There are a lot of people in this town who are afraid to come out to a food pantry because they are afraid of how they will be perceived.”
There are about 50 free food and meal offerings in the Mansfield area each month and Baughman volunteers at 17 of the functions. He gets himself involved by asking, “Is there anything I can do to help?”
When not serving food, he tries to attend the many churches where he volunteers.
“I have one special phrase, ASAP/ASAP, which means, ‘always say a prayer as soon as possible.’ If it wasn’t for prayer, maybe I wouldn’t be here,” Baughman said.
He likes the example set by the Good Samaritan, which emphasizes self-sacrifice for the benefit of the disadvantaged. If something needs to be done, Baughman is there.
In 2017, he rounded up 2,100 pounds of aluminum cans, recycled them and used the resulting money to send two Boy Scouts and two Cub Scouts to their respective summer camps. He also helped send one boy to the Boy Scout National Jamboree at Farragut State Park in Idaho for a two-week stay in 1973.
Baughman is a former Boy Scout, and a Boy Scout merit badge counselor for bicycling.
He suffers from narcolepsy, a neurological disorder that causes daytime drowsiness. He was diagnosed in 1988.
“If I’m just sitting still, in 3 to 5 minutes I’ll fall asleep; but if I’m doing something, I’m OK,” Baughman said.
So to avoid falling asleep at the wheel, Baughman rides a bicycle everywhere. He rides around Mansfield and sometimes even to Galion or Shelby and back.
Baughman’s Family History
Baughman holds interesting footnotes in history.
He is the great-great-great grandson of Abraham J. Baughman, the County Recorder of Richland County. The elder Baughman wrote “History of Richland County, Ohio, from 1808 to 1908; Also Biographical Sketches of Prominent Citizens of the County,” in two volumes.
This was published in 1909, one year after Mansfield’s centennial celebration.
He also wrote histories for Morrow, Ashland, Huron and Seneca counties. Baughman’s parents didn’t talk very much about their namesake ancestor-author, but Baughman found out by tracing his family history and genealogy, to which he has found ancestral roots stretching back to Switzerland in 1523.
He was born on May 29, 1952, to Edith Martha Wade and Clyde Clarence Baughman in Pittsfield, Illinois.
Bughman’s mother is originally from Mansfield and is related to Tom Wade, of Wade and Gatton Nurseries in Bellville. Baughman is the oldest of six, with siblings Myron, Thomas, Marcia Sue, Billie Nora and Howard.
“My dad built the house that I lived in in Pittsfield from the ground up,” Baughman said.
As an architect and builder, Clyde built the family home in Pittsfield, about two hours north of St. Louis. His father served as a German language interpreter for General Dwight D. Eisenhower in World War II.
“Back in Illinois, we had a milk cow that went dry,” Baughman recalled. “My dad said if the cow wouldn’t produce milk, then we’d pour coffee over rolled oats — I don’t drink coffee to this day.”
His parents were divorced, and his mom moved back to Mansfield in 1960. He and a few of his siblings (Myron, Tom and Marcia Sue) came with her to live in a home on Fourth Avenue on the east side of Mansfield.
“There was a Dairy Queen at Fifth Avenue and Grace Street,” Baughman said. “One of my brothers worked there.”
He also recalled sled riding on the hill at Liberty Park. His grandfather, Obadiah Kimberly Wade, worked for the WPA, which dug out the ponds at North Lake Park and at Liberty Park where Baughman went sledding. His uncle, Obadiah J. Wade II, worked for the street department and was buried alive three times in cave-ins while digging or repairing storm sewers.
“He was saved by breathing air trapped in his hardhat,” Baughman said.
Baughman attended grade school at Newman Elementary, middle school at John Simpson, and graduated from Mansfield Senior High in 1972. He had 12 years of perfect attendance and no instances of being tardy.
In high school, he was active in the class executive committee, Vocational Industrial Club of America, president of the Architecture Industrial Drafting and Design class, Pep Club, Junior Achievement and was a manager for the football and wrestling teams.
As the football manager, Baughman’s nickname was “CQ,” which stood for “Cool and Quick.” At 5 feet, 5 inches and 126 pounds, he participated in the grueling bleacher step workouts at Arlin Field.
Coach Jim Lutz told him that he didn’t have to do the steps.
“Well, it keeps me active with the team,” he replied.
Baughman recalls the Senior High homecoming game against Madison in 1970. The contest ended tied 0-0 and after the game, he was kept from entering the locker room.
“When they finally let me in, the lights were out, then flashed on. They presented me with a varsity jacket and letter for my final homecoming game,” he said.
Baughman said that Coach Lutz caught him smoking one day in the catacombs of Arlin Field.
“He gave me two choices. Quit smoking and stay on the football team or keep on smoking and you’re off the team. That was the last cigarette I ever smoked.”
Baughman signed up to join the U.S. Marines during his senior year, but could not enlist because of his poor eyesight. His brother, Myron, made repeated attempts until he was accepted in the U.S. Army.
Baughman said he may have had some impact on the City Building. Mansfield High School instructor Eugene Sadowski was his drafting instructor at Senior High and the class project was to design a city administration building. Today, Baughman’s handwriting is neat and concise as a result of developing precise printing for architectural drawings.
“During high school, I delivered the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and my route ran from Wayne Street all the way to Main,” Baughman said.
During that time, he observed all the activity of Mansfield’s major industries in the flats, which included Westinghouse, Tappan, Humphryes Manufacturing Company, Therm-O-Disc, Ohio Brass, Snyder’s Bakery and Mansfield Tire.
“Harmony House on Third Street used to be the Junior Achievement building, where I made $2.25 an hour and I cleaned that building from top to bottom.”
Baughman said that working there enabled him to know every nook and cranny including some hidden passageways inside the building.
Baughman mentioned the robot named Elektro that now resides at the Mansfield Memorial Museum after it was an attraction at the 1939 and 1940 World’s Fairs.
“Jay Bookwalter’s dad helped build that robot when he worked at Westinghouse,” Baughman said, also noting the robot that rode a unicycle in the window of Bookwalter’s Best Bike Shop on Lexington Avenue.
“I went to college in 1974 – went to Ohio State two years, Arizona State two years, and I finished up my civil engineering degree at Brigham Young University,” Baughman said. “And when Ohio State played against Arizona State in the 1997 Rose Bowl game, I had to stay neutral because I went to both schools. That was kind of hard.”
Ohio State won that game 20-17.
Baughman roomed with other students in apartments during his college days. He worked as a dishwasher among other jobs to support himself while going to school.
“In Phoenix, I was working at the DoubleTree Inn washing dishes, when Jim McKay from ABC’s Wide World of Sports came in.” He said he took McKay’s luggage to his room, delivered some meals, and in three days made $100 in tips from the sportscaster.
“I came back from Phoenix in April 1978 and married Mary Jane Jarvis,” Baughman said. “I came here after the famous blizzard of ’78, and I’m glad I missed it.”
Besides his stepson, Timothy Jarvis, a stepdaughter named Ashley and three step-granddaughters, Clarence also has his own daughter, Melanie Marie, who lives in Galion.
He lived in Galion from 1981 to 1983, coming back to Mansfield to care for his mother when she became ill. His mother died in 2003 at the age of 72.
Baughman followed in his relatives’ footsteps and worked at the Mansfield City Garage in the sewer treatment gang. He regularly cleaned out storm sewers but thankfully, he never got buried alive like his uncle.
Baughman also worked for 22 years at BFI, now Rumpke, during which he only missed 11 days of work due to illnesses and retired in 2011.
Baughman is well known around Mansfield. He can be seen working at the free meal distribution centers and walking or cycling between his volunteer duties. Everyone seems to know Clarence Baughman as his friendliness and helpfulness reaches across many lives.
When St. Peter’s free meal day changed from the first to the second week of the month, Baughman went to tell Mansfield’s First Call 211 office to inform them of the date change.
The 211 operator said, “Hey, Clarence, why don’t you become our walking 211 office? You’re getting the information out before we could get it on our calendar.”
Coordinator Terry Carter said Baughman is very good at informing the 211 call center on changes in shift schedules and other date anomalies with service providers.
“He’s there in the background and his presence on the street makes him familiar with what is happening on the street,” she said. “He sees it every day. He is interested in the well-being of the community.”
Carter added that she’d like to find ways of giving him a better voice to air his observations.
While Baughman was being interviewed at Mansfield-Richland County Public Library, a gentleman came up and asked him if the Reaching Out mission home at 30 S. Mulberry St. would be opening its warming shelter that night and Baughman said that it would be open because overnight snow was expected.
Baughman believes in people getting good educations to better their lives. He has trained people getting their General Equivalency Diploma (GED).
“A lot of people can’t afford the cost, and I help them for free. In one case, I taught two generations,” he said. “If it wasn’t for volunteering, I probably wouldn’t be as popular as I am.”
When asked about what he feels is important, Baughman said, “Life in general! When I see people my age – I’m 65 – getting around on walkers, wheelchairs and canes, I ask myself, ‘What have I done different to make myself healthier?’”
The answer, it seems, is to work hard to better lives for others and perhaps add a little walking and cycling to his daily cycle of life.
