Mary Dan (McKinney) Baldwin, 89, devoted wife and mother, died on Friday, October 11, 2019 after a brief illness. Born April 6, 1930, Mary Dan grew up in Taylors near Southern Bleachery, where her father worked for many years as an overseer. After high school Mary Dan enrolled at Furman University (BA, Music, 1951). Later, after completing her undergraduate work, Mary Dan received an offer of admission at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she completed most of the requirements for the Master of Arts. On March 3, 1956 Mary Dan married Don Baldwin of Simpsonville, also a Furman graduate (BA, English,1951). For more than sixty years Mary Dan was a faithful member of Taylors First Baptist Church, where she served as a Sunday school teacher, children's choir director, pianist, chorister, and soloist. For almost thirty years Mary Dan gave music lessons, first as a member of the faculty at Taylors High School, later in her own living room. By the time of her retirement in the mid-1980s Mary Dan had taught hundreds of children to play the piano, inspiring in her pupils a love of learning and the joy of music making. To her own three children Mary Dan gave the gift of music, and, more importantly, gifts of moral clarity, authentic spirituality, and a durable, muscular faith. With regard to her unfailing kindness, her charity, her sacrificial and selfless devotion to family, friends, and church, and her capacity to forgive, she was unsurpassed. Mary Dan was preceded in death by her husband of sixty-one years, Don; her parents, Dan H. and Nannie (Boswell) McKinney; and a granddaughter, Audrey Claire. She is survived by three children, Donnie (Sharon) of Franklin, TN, Danny (Anne) of Decorah, IA, and Susan Green (Todd) of Manchester, TN; six grandchildren and two great-granddaughters.
Memorial services will be Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 3pm in the chapel at Taylors First Baptist Church with Dr. Jimmie Harley officiating.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorial gifts be made to the Taylors Free Medical Clinic.
