Stewart family

Ralph Randles Stewart, his first wife, Isabelle Darrow Stewart, and his second wife, Hladia Porter Stewart, were teachers and missionaries to that portion of the Indian sub-continent which became Pakistan in 1947. Ralph and Isabelle Stewart were both botany teachers and both functioned as amateur botanists, identifying and collecting examples of the flora from various regions of northern India and Pakistan. Hladia Stewart was an English teacher/missionary who wrote numerous stories, plays, travel articles and poems reflecting the lifestyle of northern India.

Ralph Stewart was born in upstate New York in 1890 and received his undergraduate degree in botany from Columbia University in 1911. Immediately after graduation, he accepted a teaching position in botany at Gordon College in Rawalpindi, northern India near the Afghanistan border.

He returned to Columbia in 1914 and began work on his Ph.D. During this period he married his first wife, Isabelle Caroline Darrow. After receiving his Ph.D in botany from Columbia, he and Isabelle returned to Gordon College in 1917 as botany teachers.

In 1933, Stewart became the principal of Gordon College and remained in that position until 1955 when church policy mandated he relinquish the post. He became vice-principal until his retirement in 1960 when he joined the staff at the University of Michigan as a research assistant helping to identify plant species from northern India and Pakistan.

After the death of Isabelle in 1953, Stewart married Hladia Porter in 1954. They moved to Ann Arbor in 1960 and formally retired to The Westminster Gardens in Durant, California in 1981. Here he became politically active in environmental issues, delivered numerous talks about his teaching career and botanical interests, and wrote for the community newspaper. At this writing (1992), R.R. Stewart is alive and resides in a full care facility in California.

Hladia Stewart was born in India of missionary parents in 1896. Her father ended his career as principal of Gordon College in 1932. Hladia received her BA at Woodstock School in Landown, India and a Master's Degree from The College Of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio in 1919. After graduation, she returned to India to teach English at Kinnaird College, a girls school in Lahore. Following her marriage to Ralph Stewart in 1954, she moved to Gordon College where she was appointed Director of Women in addition to her teaching duties. She died in 1984.

From the guide to the Stewart family papers, 1890-1991, 1950-1991, (Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan)