Gordon, Bill and Annie Stewart

Dr. Gordon Stewart was born in 1929 in North Vancouver. He attended Ridgeway Elementary School and graduated from North Vancouver High School in 1947. After obtaining a degree from the University of British Columbia in 1951, he graduated from the University of Toronto in dentistry in 1955. He practised dentistry in Vancouver and 100 Mile House, but died tragically in 1967. The scholarship in his name was established by his parents, William and Annie Stewart, who made the first donation toward what eventually became the North Vancouver High School Education Foundation.

William (Bill) Stewart was born in Cumbernauld, Scotland, near Glasgow, March 7 1903. After serving in World War I for three years in the Eighth Field Ambulance Corps, he taught French and Social Studies for 34 years at North Van High, starting in 1924 just six months after the school had moved into its new building at 23rd and St. George's. Throughout his teaching career, he was absent only once, for four days, with the flu. He is probably remembered best as a music teacher, especially for his production of eight operettas in eight years, including Ermine, Don Alonso's Treasure, Tulip Time, "Oh Doctor!" Carmen, Mockingbird, and HMS Pinafore. Always an avid gardener and builder, he was up on the ladder doing roof repairs as late as age 95. He died August 12 1992 in White Rock after a short illness, only months before his hundredth birthday.

Annie Stewart was born in Rossland BC. She graduated from UBC (where she met Bill) in 1923, earning the Governor-General's gold medal in history and silver medal in English. She taught Grades One to Seven in a one-room school in Saskatchewan for two years before she married Bill in 1928 and moved to North Vancouver, where the couple built a house at 11th Street and Grand Boulevard and raised two boys, Gordon and Dr. Donald Stewart MD. Annie loved her family, her friends, her home, and her garden; she enjoyed sewing and baking and she remained an avid reader, but she also delighted in thought-provoking and lively debates. Annie and Bill moved to White Rock in 1963, where they had a long and happy retirement in a home with a view of the sea. When she died, she was even closer to her hundredth birthday than Bill had been.