Longtime Haines resident Glenn “Garry” Stewart died Nov. 6 at home.
Wife Kolia Ann Stewart remembers him as a man who protected her since the day they met at her favorite neighborhood bar near Los Angeles, California.
“It was love at first sight,” she said of the first time she laid eyes on the tall, blonde, mustached Garry. “I go, ‘he looks like General Custer.’”
Somehow he heard her and came over to say hello.
Kolia laughs remembering that later that same night, he rescued her from a bar fight in the parking lot when a man punched her.
“All of the sudden, I see this blond streak go running by me and it was Garry,” she said. “He jumped on the guy.”
She agreed to go on a date with him, but when he made her wait for a few hours, she went out on her own. Returning late to find his red 1963 Corvair sitting across the street from her house, she explained that she’d gotten tired of waiting. “He said, ‘oh, OK,’” she said. “He didn’t care.”
The two began dating and within three weeks, they were married May 1, 1970. They were together for 55 years.
Kolia said he later told her that he had married her, in part, because he loved her family and how well they treated each other.
“We had dinners at the table, old-fashioned stuff.”
The couple made a life together in the San Fernando Valley, first with her parents and then on their own in their first apartment in 1971.
Tragedy struck during the San Fernando earthquake that year and they were forced to leave their damaged apartment.
During their decade together in California, the two bought a van and traveled often, camping at various lakes around the state. They would sing “Goodnight Sweetheart” by The Spaniels, with Garry’s high tenor carrying the tune. “It was fun, back when you drink and sing until 2 a.m. and keep the neighbors awake,” she said.
He loved music and did a stint as a drummer in a band Kolia said “sounded like the Beach Boys,” while living in Florida with his parents. Garry would often carry a radio, with the music turned up loud, wherever he went.
The couple moved to Haines in 1980 in search of better educational opportunities for Kolia’s daughter. It was something of a return to his childhood for Garry, who was born Sept. 25, 1947, outside of Ottawa in rural Ontario.
“He always talked about Canada and how wonderful his childhood was,” she said.
Stewart worked a few jobs, including installing sheetrock at the Chilkat Center before working at a sawmill owned by John Schnabel.
He also worked as a commercial fisherman. He built their home on N. Sawmill in 1990, taking the time to show Kolia how to shave the large logs that support the two-story cabin.
Garry cultivated a lifelong passion for finding standing dead trees in the Chilkat Valley and harvesting them for firewood.
“He loved chopping it and stacking it and bringing it in,” she said. “His friends in Klukwan nicknamed him “Standing Dead Shit.”
The family always had dogs, including a beloved malamute, Lexx, for five years. Those dogs would provide protection to the family as well. Kolia recalled a time when Garry was knocked unconscious while working at the mill one winter.
“Just laying there, nobody saw him. They thought he left. And my dog that I had at the time was in there with him,” she said. “[It] went over and woke him up. Just kept licking him until he’d wake up.”
The Stewarts were private people who did not get out often. But they cultivated a warm and artful home decorated with Kolia’s latest work, including fanciful miniature homes, clay sculptures, upcycled Christmas decorations and crocheted animals.
“He always appreciated my art,” she said. “I’d say, ‘Garry, we have too much junk in here. It’s starting to feel like we’re hoarders.’ And he’d say ‘I like it.’”
When they were still driving, the two liked to drive to the end of Lutak Road and back – from the time since before it was paved. Later in life, he could be seen most days walking around Haines, stopping in to shop and then taking a break sitting in the Fogcutter Bar before making the long trek back home.
The Stewarts spent a lot of time dancing together. She said Garry was a wonderful dancer, both on foot and on roller skates.
“Garry’s first love was roller skating,” she said.
Together the two would jam, or dance, skate during the community skating nights in Haines. She remembers showing up one night to take a spin on the wooden school gymnasium floor with the rest of the town.
“We brought our tape [of] Fleetwood Mac,” she said. While everyone else was struggling along, scooting along, trying to keep their feet under them and avoid falling, Garry and Kolia showed up with their own skates. “We’d do our dance around and people would say ‘oh, I didn’t know you could do that.’”
Garry Stewart was preceded in death by his brother, Wayne Stewart, and parents, Phyllis and Arthur Stewart. He is survived by his wife, Kolia Ann Stewart, and five nephews.