Harold Stewart

Harold Lloyd Stewart was born March 14, l933, in Warren Township of Lucas County, the son of Lester Milo 'Joe' Stewart and Neva Mitchell Stewart. He died February 11, 2007, at the Veterans Medical Center in Des Moines at the age of 73 years, 11 months, and 11 days. Harold attended Freedom Rural School and Garfield Elementary School in Chariton before going on to Alma Clay Junior High and Chariton High School. He entered Chariton High School with the Class of l952 and received his diploma through a program of the United States Air Force. During his high school years, he worked as a bell-hop at the Charitone Hotel under the fatherly direction of desk manager Ed Halferty, who had been a bell-hop at the hotel during his own teen years. Harold served in the Air Force for four years from l953 onward as an airman specialist in photo analysis with assignments in the United States and Europe. He received the Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, and the Korean War Medal awarded to military personnel who served during the years of the Korean Conflict. He was honorably discharged in l957. Harold was united in marriage to Eva Mae Shelton of Lacona, Iowa, on June 4, 1961. The ceremony took place at the Norwood Evangelical United Brethern (now Methodist) church, the home church of Eva and her family. The couple had no children, but loved their nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews and enjoyed hosting Christmas dinners for extended family members and their children. They saw most frequently Dwaine and Marge Stewart, Ilene Church and Connor Altenhofen, her sister Susie Hayes and her daughter Tracie and granddaughter, Olivia. He was the namesake of his nephew, Andrew Harold Shelton. In l960, Harold became employed by Cargill in Des Moines, working in its soybean-processing mill for the next thirty-five years. When he retired from Cargill in l995, he received an award for working the entire period of his employment without an accident. For twenty-six years, Harold and Eva resided at their West Lake home in Chariton. Both loved to watch the deer, homeless domestic animals, the birds and other wildlife that came from the nearby timber to feed the year around. When the abandoned cats heard his car leave the highway and head for the Stewart home a half-mile way, they gathered for the food he supplied unfailingly. Harold loved cars and kept his Chevrolets spotless. He and Eva were well-known regulars at the LakeSide Casino and Resort and enjoyed the friendships they made with several employees there. He was a long-time member of the Calvin Caviness American Legion Post of Chariton and regularly attended the monthly meetings of the post. Harold was preceded in death by his parents, brothers Roy Frederick 'Buster' Stewart and Raymond Stewart, his sister, Alta Marie Everman and her husband, Gerald., his in-laws, Martin and Evelyn Shelton, and his sisters-in-laws, Arlene Burley Stewart, Louise Richards Stewart, and Evelyn Louise Shelton. Survivors include his wife, Eva Mae, sister-in-law Susie Hayes of Clive, Iowa, brothers-in-law Ronald (Clarissa) Shelton of Lacona and Richard (Marilyn) Shelton of Minneapolis, Minnesota, He is survived, too, by many nieces and nephews, a host of cousins, and many friends and neighbors.