Lawyer was expert in history of Indians

7/9/2006

Graveside services for Robert F. Bauman, 82, who was a Toledo lawyer, a scholar of Native American history, and an evangelist, will be at 11 a.m. Saturday in Toledo Memorial Park.

He died from complications of lung and heart disease June 13 in his Clarkdale, Ariz., home. He and his wife, Joyce, moved from West Toledo to Clarkdale in 2000.

Mr. Bauman practiced law about 25 years and had an office in the Spitzer Building, his wife said. He received his law degree from the University of Toledo.

While a graduate student at UT, he studied with Professor Randolph C. Downes, whose speciality was American Indian history. After Mr. Bauman received his law degree, the research he conducted for his master's thesis led a Cleveland law firm to hire him as its "research historian on Indian claims," as he was listed on the firm's letterhead.

In the 1950s, he did research on land claims by the Ottawa in northwest Ohio; the Kickapoo in Kansas and Oklahoma, and the Peorias of Oklahoma. He testified before the U.S. Indian Claims Commission, which decided which tribes controlled which land before Europeans arrived.

Mr. Bauman wrote articles for the Northwest Ohio Quarterly from the late 1940s into the 1960s with such titles as "The Migration of the Ottawa Indians from the Maumee Valley to Walpole Island" and "Pontiac's Successor."

"He just liked to do research. That was his thing," his wife said. "He did a very good job."

A native of Defiance, Mr. Bauman grew up in South Toledo and was a graduate of Libbey High School. He was a Navy veteran of World War II and served in the Philippines.

After receiving his master's degree from UT, he became an instructor at the Howe Military Academy.

In the early 1950s, he was director of the Dearborn, Mich., Historical Museum for 2 1/2 years, during which he was a consultant on Indian affairs to Michigan's Gov. G. Mennen Williams.

After closing his law office, he spent more than two decades traveling the country - and the world - as an evangelist.

"He was very successful," his wife said. "He got saved, and he saw that there is a real call for someone to go out and preach the truth of the Bible. He used the King James, and a lot of people got saved."

Surviving are his wife, Joyce, whom he married July 3, 1948; sons, Mark, Matthew, Benjamin, and Jonathon Bauman; daughters, Beverly Haye, Bonnie McArthur, Rebecca Haye, Elizabeth Shinn, and Ruth Bauman; sister, Nancy Shuman; 21 grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren.

Memorial services will be at 2:30 p.m. Saturday in the Lodge at the Vine Camp in Temperance. Arrangements are by the Ansberg West Funeral Home.