A Personal View of Cynthia Baron

Tufts junior Naomi Mower is an editor at Spare Change, and worked closely with Cynthia Baron. She shared some of her personal memories of Cynthia with Tufts E-News.

What were your first interactions with Cynthia like?
During my sophomore year at Tufts, I contacted Cynthia and asked her about volunteering for the paper. I remember my first phone conversation with her, and being really intimidated. I was taking journalism at the time and working as co-editor of the Tufts Observer’s news section, but as I was listing off my obviously limited journalism experience, I could sense her hesitation over the phone. I later realized why; Cynthia was always extremely busy at the office, especially since our editor-in-chief, Susan Horton, was volunteering as a transitional editor and (though not nearly as much as I often had to) referred to Cynthia’s expertise for guidance on many aspects of the paper.

The first time that I showed up at the office, my perception of Spare Change changed completely. As I approached the side door of 1151 Mass Ave that Cynthia had directed me too, I realized that the office of the paper is actually in the basement of a Baptist Church. I hesitated outside the door, but Cynthia fortunately met me there and took me through the winding halls where we had to duck under low-hanging wires and walked past the Bread and Jams center to the one room that is the Spare Change News office.

Right when I got there, there was some paperwork to fill out, and after answering all of the questions, I handed the forms to Cynthia. The first words out of her mouth were “Oh you go to Tufts!” Her face lit up and it was the first time of many that I saw her smile. “I went there too!” she told me, still smiling.

Whenever Cynthia smiled, it would always linger on her face, and she’d look right into your eyes, waiting for you to join in- it was almost like whenever she found something that she liked, or that was unique or interesting to her, she wanted to make sure that the experience was shared.

What was it like editing with Cynthia?
In the beginning, she’d give me articles to go through, one at a time, and I’d copy edit them, fixing spelling, punctuation, and grammar. When I first began, I was unsure of how to proceed. Some of the articles that first come in are pretty choppy and it’s hard to know how much you should change them. Cynthia helped me to understand that the goal is to make the article fit smoothly within the format of the paper while maintaining the voice of the author. I’d hand her the articles that I’d gone through, one by one, and she’d go through each change that I made, commenting on them and asking me lots of questions about them. Occasionally she’d see one that she really liked, or I’d catch something that she’d miss, and she’d give me that lingering smile until I’d return it and we were both sitting there in the basement of the church bonding over something as simple as a quotation mark.

Eventually as we got to know one another more and she was more confident with my editing, Cynthia gave me some really interesting things to work on- I’d be reformatting free ads for non-profits that had been scribbled on scraps of paper and left in the office or reworking pieces with incredibly strong voices so that the stories would come out- she really went out of her way to teach me the ins and outs of the paper, and to get me involved.

How did Cynthia deal with being sick and editing Spare Change?
We got into a routine in the office- every time I showed up, usually somewhat rumpled after a day of classes, I’d toss my bag into the corner, all of my books to be nearly forgotten for the next few hours, and I’d turn to Cynthia and ask her how she was. She was always surrounded by a pack of scattered yellow sticky notes that covered her desk. She’d usually respond with a “fine,” or a “doing well”- I didn’t have any idea that she was sick until sometime in July when she had to miss work for a doctor’s appointment.

I don’t think that Cynthia was the type of person to pull other people into her problems- she was always so positive when I spoke to her, and she rarely talked about herself. She would just ask about me, and about how my week was, always stalling before she pulled out the week’s articles so that we just talked for a couple of minutes.
It was always obvious that Spare Change News meant a great deal to Cynthia. When I visited her in the hospital and talked to her about the paper and our new editor Sam Scott’s work, I got to see her smile for one last time. As I prepared to leave the room, she took my hand and held it and looked into my eyes without saying a thing, and all of her strength and genuine thoughtfulness was written all over her face, as if she was the one who felt responsible for telling me that it would be fine.