It became an addictive occupation, doing the sometimes tedious job of indexing the entries; I came to feel that George Edson was one of my closest friends. When you are armed with reference numbers, and begin to search through the information itself, you will see that his character shines through all his work. He must have been a delightful man.
George Edson himself was descended from the Stewarts of Londonderry, New Hampshire, through Lydia7, Oliver6, Samuel5, Charles4, John3, Robert2,Walter1and his brick wall was finding the link between Samuel and Oliver, which exasperated him so much that in October 1922 he wrote, "We'll give you our hat if you can complete this man's story." Whether he ever did that or not ... he did, in the course of his indefatigable digging, find the one clue that led him to proof of the descent, in October 1943. You can check it out on page E64.
But that didn't stop his research for other people. He had by that time accumulated a loyal following, and was fired to continue to search out any Stewarts he could find, in courthouses and library archives all up and down the east coast. I don't believe there was a single summer that he didn't spend in buses, going from place to place. In the years that followed his style became more and more chatty and friendly, like the relative we all wish we had, who thought nothing of staying in grim hotels and grubbing around in attics of courthouses, waiting for buses in the rain, enduring the hot and humid summers, only to return home triumpphant with some little-known facts, and spend his days at home printing it all up with astonishingly few typos or mistakes, putting out the Magazine month after month.
Only once did he falter; in June 1930 he suspended publication for what turned out to be a year. He wasn't happy to do it; "We make this announcement with tears in our eyes, for this little magazine has been a happy hobby and we wished never to give it up." But there had not been the support he needed for some time, which could be seen from the continuous pleadings for subscriptions to be paid ($1 a year!), and he must have been heartily discouraged. When he returned in July 1931 the subscription had gone up to $2, and he never faltered again until nearly the end of his life, in December 1970. In November of that year his self-effacing style relegated to a footnote the following: "After this type-setter had his forehead cracked on the street pavement when he came down head-first when hit amid-ships by a little automobile in a big hurry, a year or two ago, he never was quite right in his mind. (Skip the first part of that statement and hold the latter eight words.)" (J120). A quick look backwards finds the entry on J84, February 1970:
"When walking eastward across Kansas avenue at Loula street in Olathe on Saturday afternoon, December 13, I was struck by an automobile driven by a woman from Edgerton who was in a hell of a rush to get somewhere. She came out of a drive-way full tilt into a stream of mid-day traffic; I remember seeing her car coming, and I supposed that she saw me. I stepped back and put out an arm to shield myself from the impact. Things faded out. Onlookers say that I was knocked high into the air, came tumbling head-first to the pavement, was run over and backed over to disengage me. I was a bloody mess, unconscious, with cracked bones, mashed flesh and torn and dirty clothing; and the dear, frightened woman, and many of the witnesses, thought I was dead when the ambulance hustled me away.
"But I wasn't dead, and I didn't intend to be, although I am now 86 years old. My work is not finished."
I hope that all Stewart researchers understand that what we are really doing is finishing his work as much as we can.
Mary Stewart Kyritsis March 1998