William Stewart

William D. Stewart August 3, 1940–December 14, 2016 William Dale Stewart, 76, of West Chester and Greenhills, Ohio, passed away December 14, 2016, to conclude a long struggle with several serious ailments. Bill, as most knew him, was the son of Woodrow Russell and Pearline (Oaks) Stewart. He was born in Stanton, Kentucky, on August 3, 1940. He married Yong Mi Lee, born in Korea and known as both Aija and Connie, on May 13, 1963, in Seoul, South Korea. Bill was raised in Fairfield, Ohio, in a place populated with so many expatriate Kentuckians that neighboring Hamilton was sometimes called “Hamiltucky.” Through his youth Bill believed himself to be the eldest of four siblings (the others being Sherry, Gerald and Cindi), although later he learned that he had been preceded by a brother named Danred, who died in infancy. “Billy Dale,” as he was called in his boyhood, combined an artistic and inquiring mind with a relentless independent streak that led to friction at school. However, his athleticism brought him local prominence and a new nickname, “Big Bill”—and, more importantly, it brought a basketball scholarship to attend St. Joseph’s College in Indiana. However, Bill found college life lonely and, because he had no funds beyond his scholarship, impoverished as well. When his father became unemployed, Bill left school to return home. Later in his life, and for many years, he attended night school, but his goal was always simple knowledge; he never pursued another degree. Bill had chafed against authority at college, where as a freshman he faced frequent and pointless hazing. His decision to enlist in the US Army therefore seems a curious one, but, as he said, “I wanted to see Europe. The Army sent me to Korea.” There he met a young Korean woman other people described as “the girl who always laughs.” When Bill’s term of enlistment expired in spring 1962 he returned to the US, where he asked his father for a loan to go back to Korea to marry Aija. “You can’t start your married life in debt,” his father told him. “If you love her, go back into the Army.” He did. There were some paperwork snafus that delayed their marriage, but before Bill departed the Army for the final time in September 1965, he had a wife, a young son and a newborn boy as well. Honorably discharged, Bill took his young family on the first of what became many driving vacations. Over three weeks they covered many of the natural attractions of the American West and Mexico City, before returning to Fairfield. After living with his parents for several weeks, the family moved in late 1965 to Greenhills, Ohio, where they would remain—in one apartment and two different houses, adding one bedroom at each additional stop—for more than two decades. Bill worked for Cincinnati Bell (and eventually the Avco Corporation) and, in the evenings, at a Shillito’s Department Store, and for some time worked two jobs with one pair of pants. Aija began working at the food service in the Greenhills school district, and they saved continually to afford the down payment for their own house, which they finally purchased in 1973. Bill and Aija shared keen business minds—his leaning toward speculation, hers toward management—and a willingness to work. Therefore, after gaining equity in their first house, they leveraged it to purchase the first of what would become a growing number of rental property units, which increased both their work load and (if often only in theory) their income. By this time Bill, who remained always a contrarian and anti-authoritarian, had become—what else?—a policeman; he joined the Sheriff’s Department of Hamilton County as a patrolman in 1971, where he remained until injuries to his back forced his early retirement in 1989. Those back injuries troubled him, with increasing severity, through the remainder of his life. Additional serious ailments—a leaky heart valve that required open-heart surgery in late 2004; a diagnosis of myelodysplasia in 2011 that initiated years of chemotherapy—made his life thereafter difficult and often painful. Nevertheless, he loved his life and fought for it fiercely. He relished the lives and accomplishments of his sons, William Russell (“Russ”) and Daniel Wayne, as well as their marriages—Russ to Jannelle Santavicca and Daniel to Amanda Holmes—and Russ and Jannelle’s sons, Ethan Alexander and Colin Russell, both of whom he was able to see into their teens. He hoped to live to be 80 and reached 95% of his goal—just one measure of a successful life. Bill is survived by his wife, sons, grandsons, his three younger siblings and many nieces, nephews and friends. As one visitor to the hospital said about him on his last day, “He’s been a good friend.” Visitation will be held on Tuesday, December 20, 2016 from 4:00 PM - 7:00 PM at Vorhis & Ryan Funeral Home, 11365 Springfield Pk., Springdale, OH 45246. Funeral service will be held on Wednesday, December 21, 2016 at 11:00 AM at First Baptist Church of Greenhills, 11195 Winton Rd., Greenhills, OH 45218.