Contributed by: Esther Stewart
Frederick William Stewart was born June 15, 1886, in Williamsville, Porter Township, Cass County, Michigan. He was the second child of Charles Creacy Stewart and Pearallee Cousins. In my childhood, Daddy spoke of a younger brother named Charles who drowned when he was twelve but no more is known about this brother.
As a point of interest, Coca-Cola was invented the same year my father was born! In the 1900 census of Walworth County Wisconsin, Daddy was a farm laborer at the tender age of thirteen. Frederick was a teenager of seventeen when the Wright Brothers took their first flight. Reverend F.W. Stewart, as he was called later in life, was approximately thirty-two when WWI began. When he was a very young man, perhaps a teenager, his desire was to join the Army. However, instead of carrying a gun, he was assigned KP duty. He recalls that each and every day he peeled potatoes. After a couple of months of this, he was sorry about joinning and begged his father to buy him out, which his father did. Buying someone out of the Army was common practice in those days. Later he registered for WWI but did not serve because he had previously been in service.
He was a very quite, patient, and austere man. He was of a lean build, and stood five feet, eleven and 3/4 inches. He wore suspenders and a belt. Maybe he thought if one failed, he had a backup. He was a very quiet man by nature, not much of a talker at all. I don’t ever remember him singing but he whistled all the time. He did not like jokes, and was a man who stood for no foolishness. He was quite serious about living a Christian life, but essence of his conversation was “Hellfire and Damnation.” Daddy drank tea like I drink coffee. He also had this strange love for onion sandwiches! Of course the bread had to be homemade because he would not eat store-bought bread and Mama baked bread every other day or so. If you have never smelled fresh homemade bread when it first comes out of the oven, you have really missed a treat.
Frederick Stewart deplored farm work and became a freelance carpenter. Wherever Daddy was, you could see sawdust flying! Sometimes, he would take me to work with him and to keep me out of his hair, he would have me move cinder blocks from "here to there." I was a little thing and could barely pick up the bricks. Nevertheless, I did it with gusto, and no one could have told me I was not helping my father build a house. At one point in his life, he worked for the Pullman Car Company, building the sleeping cars.
In the 1917, 1923, and 1928 Chicago City Directory, Fred Stewart is living at 2412 S. Wabash. At 2222 S. Wabash, there was a club called the Four Deuces, owned by a gangster named Johnny Torrio. In 1919, Johnny hired Al Capone to work at his Club as mop-up boy. Within a week Capone moved up to bouncer and bodyguard for Torrio, later becoming the manager of the club. There were reports that twelve rival gang members were tortured and killed in the cellar of this very building. Fred Stewart lived two blocks down the street? This was the “Roaring Twenties" folks and with Al Capone headquarters down the street, I can't help but wonder how that affected Daddy's life.
Frederick William Stewart died May 11, 1965 in Allegan Michigan. He is buried in Pearl Cemetery, Clyde Township, Allegan County, Michigan. There are times, when I’m reminiscing about my father, it seams surreal to me that he was born such a long time ago. The generation gap between my father and I was three years shy of six decades. He was fifty-seven when I was born, yet I was his one and only child. Because of Fred Stewart, I am who I am today. He was the apple of my eye, and I was always Daddy’s little girl.