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YSU gets $450K from former county judge
YOUNGSTOWN
Youngstown State University on Tuesday received $450,000 from the trust fund of Youngstown native and long-time Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Erskine Maiden Jr.
Oct. 18 is significant because Maiden, who died in August 1967, stipulated that the trust, established at the Youngstown Foundation, not be turned over to the university until 20 years after the death of his wife, Irene Butler. She died Oct. 18, 1991.
The location of Tuesday’s ceremony, Jones Hall, also had special meaning because Judge Maiden taught law at Youngstown College in that building at Lincoln and Wick avenues.
Interest from the trust, the principal of which was $250,000 when it was established, has been used over the years for scholarships for disadvantaged students to attend YSU, said Jan Strasfeld, executive director of the Youngstown Foundation.
The tradition of helping students will continue, said YSU President Cynthia E. Anderson.
She said Maiden’s “generous gift” will be used to establish a scholarship endowment for Mahoning County students to attend YSU.
“Judge Maiden understood the value of education in the community and beyond. Through the scholarships, many students will benefit and his legacy will live on,” Anderson said.
“It is appropriate that we are here in this building on this day to celebrate the generosity and foresight of Judge Maiden. With his successful law career and many community activities, he obviously made his mark in the 20th century. With this scholarship, he will continue to make his mark in the 21st century as well,” said Strasfeld.
She said Judge Maiden, who was a friend of her grandfather, Atty. Benjamin Roth, and her uncle, Atty. Dan Roth, was born in 1892, the son of a master mechanic at the old Bessemer Plant of Republic Steel. His Scottish parents taught him how to work hard. He worked as a tutor to pay for law school.
Maiden was a 1909 graduate of The Rayen School, earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and attended Harvard Law School before receiving a law degree from Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
He was admitted to the Ohio Bar in 1916, began his law practice as a junior partner in the Youngstown law firm of Morgan and Maiden, and was elected common pleas judge in 1930 at 39, at the time the youngest common pleas judge in the county. When he died in 1967, he had served 36 years on the bench and was the oldest common pleas judge in the county.