Sam Winder, an art teacher who family members say never forgot a relative's birthday, making sure to always mail a card with a little money slipped inside, died of lung cancer Jan. 18. The Baltimore resident was 84.
Family and friends said Winder was a people person. His family was large, his friends were plentiful, and many of the students he taught as a Baltimore schoolteacher remembered him years later.
"He's the type of person where wherever he would go, people would recognize him because he was popular," said his eldest son, Samuel Winder III. "At my mother's viewing people would come up and greet him, police officers and others who remembered him from junior high school. When you're a teacher, the impact you have on people for the rest of their lives is a gift."
Born Samuel Leon Winder Jr. at John Hopkins Hospital in 1930, Winder enlisted in the Air Force for the Korean War after graduating from Frederick Douglass High School in 1950, according to his family. He was stationed in Hawaii and Cheyenne, Wyo., and learned how to work on the electrical systems of airplanes.
After four years in the Air Force, Winder got his bachelor's degree at Morgan State University on the G.I. Bill and went into teaching, doing some postgraduate work at Coppin State University along the way. Winder taught art at Calverton and Herring Run junior high schools for 22 years until retiring in 1984. Calverton has since converted to an elementary and middle school.
David White, a friend who taught at another school, said Winder loved helping students put together art projects, often with a cup of coffee and a cigarette in hand. They would create watercolor paintings, draw and sketch, with Winder often coming up with the ideas and helping the students execute them.
"You think they forget you but there's always kids who remember something that you did for them to help them be a better student," White said. "That's something that teachers of the old school brought to students."
John W. Brown, who was vice principal at Calverton during Winder's time there, called him an "excellent" and "highly effective" teacher. Brown said Winder would motivate students by trying to tie art to their individual lives and could relate to them "regardless of age."
"He had the students' interests at heart and made his program around student interests," Brown said. "He would relate to their real life experiences."
Winder's eldest son said he remembered the time his elementary school's art class needed clay for a project, and his father procured a giant bag of it for the students. Samuel III said his father didn't do much art at home, but enjoyed building model cities out of wood in his basement.
After his retirement, Winder moved to White Stone, Va., a tiny rural community near the mouth of the Rappahannock River. He had family there and had sung in the choir at Mount Vernon Baptist Church as a boy, later rejoining to sing in the male chorus, called the Men's Club.
In White Stone, Winder had a boat and fished and crabbed, and also tended to a vegetable garden, sometimes bringing collard greens or other produce to share with relatives. His hobbies also included being an amateur radio operator, where he could speak with other enthusiasts under the call sign KB3MR. Samuel III said his father even kept a pigeon coop and enjoyed the slower pace of life in the country.
In 2013, he moved back to Baltimore for his health and to be closer to his children, relatives said.
Cynthia Winder described her father as "a guy's guy" who loved getting brunch on Sundays with his brother Dennis "Ibby" Taylor and watching sports. "He always enjoyed the company of his sons, grandsons or his male buddies," she said.
Winder's large family included nine children and a stepson from two marriages that ended in divorce and another relationship later in life.
Winder was preceded in death by his brothers Donald Winder, Robert Tatum, Butch Tatum and William Tatum. His survivors include his sister Carolyn Tatum-White and his brother, Dennis Taylor; 17 grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren. Relatives said he kept a calendar with all of those birthdays.
"My kids got a kick out of him never ever forgetting to send them a birthday card, and they would come on time in the mail," said Cynthia Winder. "I don't think anybody else did that."
A funeral service is set for Wednesday at March Funeral Home at 4300 Wabash Ave. in Baltimore at 11 a.m.
An earlier version gave the incorrect location for funeral services.