CAROL MARTINEAU BALDWIN
1929-2022
Carol M. Baldwin won her own struggle with breast cancer, which was diagnosed in 1990 and nearly took her life. After undergoing a double mastectomy, she decided to help other women overcome breast cancer. In 1996, she founded her own breast cancer-fighting enterprise, the Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund. In 2001, The Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund of CNY was established.
HERE’S HER STORY…
Carol was born in Syracuse, New York on Dec. 15, 1929.
The native Syracusan attended local schools, and then, like her parents and grandparents before her, attended Syracuse University.
It was in her first class at SU that she sat next Alexander Rae Baldwin Jr. – the young man who would become her husband.
After college graduation, the couple married and moved to Massapequa, Long Island.
It’s there they raised their six children, including the four Baldwin brothers — Alec, Daniel, William, and Stephen of stage, screen, and television fame — and daughters Elizabeth and Jane.
In 1983, after 29 years of marriage, Carol’s husband died of lung cancer.
In 1987 she decided to move back to Syracuse to be closer to her daughter and grandchildren.
In 1990, just weeks before her son Stephen’s wedding, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. With six sisters, Carol would become the first of three to receive such a diagnosis.
She celebrated the family milestone without letting on about her diagnosis.
And then two days later, she underwent a double mastectomy.
Her struggle with breast cancer nearly took her life. But she came back strong and decided to use that strength to help other women battling the disease.
She took a leadership role in the founding of the first Susan G. Komen Foundation chapter in Central New York to help advance the search for a cure and to provide a support group for women dealing with the trauma of undergoing breast cancer surgery and treatment.
While visiting a friend on Long Island, Baldwin happened to see a television program about a breast cancer mapping project in West Islip.
Soon she was going door to door collecting data for the Long Island project gathering critical information about the incidence and prevalence of breast cancer in that region. She then launched a similar mapping project in Syracuse and Onondaga County.
In 1996,in recognition of her dedication to finding a cure, SUNY Stony Brook named its new breast cancer diagnostic and treatment facility the Carol M. Baldwin Breast Care Center.
Family and friends were so moved by this honor they established the Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund to help support research about the disease at Stony Brook. (As of 2022 that fund has raised millions of dollars and funded more than 50 research grants.)
When Carol was approached about establishing a similar fund to support breast cancer research in her own community, she and her family created the Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund of Central New York.
The fund supports breast cancer research at SUNY Upstate Medical University.
To date it has given more than $4 million to Upstate, provided 77 research grants related to breast cancer funds an endowed lectureship series to educate physicians on breast-cancer related topics.
Carol was active in the fund until age and health prevented her from carrying out the required duties. It was then her daughter Beth took the reins and to this day is the fund’s executive director.
Carol’s other children remain active with the fund as well with Alec and Stephen sitting on the board of the Central New York fund and Jane, Daniel and Billy sitting on the board of the downstate fund’s board.
Her children are committed to carrying out their mother’s mission and mantra “Together We Will Find A Cure.”