"Mr. Stewart"

This story is a short one, but one that I want to write because it is the story of someone from Hayes Barton Baptist Church’s past who is a part of  Jim and my involvement with the church.  Even though we have only been members coming up on two years in October, we, especially Jim, attended church here for a while back in the early 1980s.  Jim was a student at North Carolina State University and lived in a basement apartment on Fairview Road.  On occasion, he would walk from his apartment up to Five Points to attend church.  On one of these occasions, he was picked up by someone driving to church.  That someone was Dan Stewart.

Jim and I called him “Mr. Stewart” and still, to this day, call him “Mr. Stewart” when we talk about him.  “Mr. Dan Stewart” and his wife lived in a big beautiful home across the street and up the hill from Jim’s place which eventually became our place for the first three years of our marriage.

In some ways, we can chalk up the success of our 29 years of marriage to Mr. Stewart as he attended our wedding and offered us some sage advice that we have tried to live by:  “never ever go to bed angry,” said Mr. Stewart, “don’t let the sun go down cross with each other.”

I don’t think we knew at the time there was a Biblical reference for the statement (Ephesians 4:26), but it certainly is fitting that Mr. Stewart would have provided advice straight from the Bible.  A member of Hayes Barton Baptist Church from 1944 to 2000 when he died, Mr. Stewart was very active in the church.  He served as a deacon for many years, including as chairman of the Diaconate in 1960, and was a Sunday School teacher.  “He was,” as Wesley Williams recalls, “a strong thread in the fabric of this church.”

Wesley also remembers Dan as someone who “was a joy to be around.” He could “lift the spirits of anyone around him quickly,” says Wesley.  “When I think of Dan, I think about a man who lived life and lived it to the fullest.  He was a man of good humor and always had an interesting story to tell.”

My husband Jim remembers a kinship with Mr. Stewart because they both worked at CP&L, albeit Jim was a part time designer working on his engineering degree at State and Mr. Stewart was a high level industrial recruiter.  “Mr. Stewart would pick me up whenever he saw me walking to church,” recalls Jim.  “Rain or shine.”

We remember going to dinner one night at the Stewarts.  We were really nervous, but they made us feel at ease. Their generosity and hospitality were evident.  We remember our wedding gift from the Stewarts was a toaster oven.  We used it a lot of years as microwaves weren’t quite a household item back then, at least not in basement apartments. 

The generosity that we experienced  from Mr. Stewart as a young married couple is something that many people have benefitted from through the years as Mr. Stewart funded the “Steward Health Center” at Springmoor Life Care Retirement Community.  Someone told me that there is a big portrait of him out there and that they over heard  a comment that “that man must have been really important to have a portrait so big.”

Life is funny as we walk our way through it, isn’t it?  The generosity of stopping to pick up someone “to carry to church,” as some around here might say, is remembered for years and somehow leaves a trail that can be rediscovered years after.  I’m glad Mr. Stewart picked up Jim those many years ago, and I’m glad he offered us advice that came straight from the Bible; words to live by, for sure.