WINSTON-SALEM — At 99 years old Joseph Baldi is more active than most people half his age. He lives independently, tends his vegetable garden, cooks meals (his mother’s special spaghetti recipe is a favorite), cuts his own lawn and walks one mile each day with friends. He is also an active member of St. Leo the Great Church in Winston-Salem, where he ushers and has recently honored his late wife Margaret with a special endowment fund.
Baldi worked as a senior project engineer assigned to government projects for more than three decades before retiring from Lucent Technologies in 1981. He met Margaret, a nurse, while they were both working at Western Electric in New Jersey.
"When I injured my back on the job, my supervisor sent me to the company doctor,” he recalls. “Margaret was the nurse that day, and the next day I saw her again on the bus on the way to work. We started talking and two years later we were married.”
They spent the next 60 years together. During that time, they raised a son and a daughter and lived in Germany, France, Japan, Hawaii and Thailand for his work on various communications projects.
“When I was released from the service, my first assignment was with Project Mercury, the man in space program. Then I was reassigned to the Government Services Department, which took us to Paris for four years, and we also spent four years near Heidelberg, Germany. My daughter learned to speak both French and German and we enjoyed our time there.”
When they returned from Europe, Baldi was offered another job opportunity – this time in North Carolina.
“I was asked to be a project engineer on the Safeguard Project. So we moved here in 1972 and have lived here ever since,” he says.
A self-proclaimed “outdoors person,” he says, “I am busier now during retirement than when I worked! I love gardening and grow
more than I need so I can share my harvest with neighbors.”
He has also decided to share with his parish, specifically with the children of St. Leo School. After learning about the Robert and Gladys Vitelli Memorial Endowment Fund, Joseph was inspired to give back in the same way.
“I thought an endowed fund was something I could do, too,” he explains. “I had heard that some of the children who wanted to attend St. Leo School could not afford the tuition, so I created the Joseph and Margaret Baldi Fund to provide tuition assistance.”
Baldi, who has also provided support for his parish and Catholic Charities Diocese of Charlotte through charitable gift annuities, says he liked the idea of honoring his wife with this special gift.
“We have four grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren, and I know my wife would have loved the idea of a gift that helps children get a good Catholic education.”
— Reprinted from “Your Legacy,” a Planned Giving newsletter for the Diocese of Charlotte