LOOKING BACK

Young Chang

T. Duncan Stewart had a sense of humor.

As an active member of the Newport Beach community who had a hand in

everything from banning local oil-well drilling to building businesses

and homes, he earned the name “city watchdog” as he went about caring,

and caring through verse at that.

Stewart, who died in 1987, was named poet laureate by the city in

1978. Here’s an excerpt from one of his poems, to show how funny Stewart

could be.

It’s from “The Phase on the Bathroom Floor,” which refers to the

city’s 1957 water shortage and was given to the Daily Pilot by former

mayor Bob Shelton. Shelton had asked for suggestions on saving water back

then. One of them was to put a brick in the toilet tank, and so Stewart

submitted his poem to the city council.

The first stanza reads:

o7 “Dear City Council, I rush,

To inform you, the thought makes me blush,

That I’ve put in the bricks

But my toilet now sticks

And the darn thing refuses to flush.”

f7 The third stanza continues:

o7 “Dear Council, I won’t be evasive,

Your kindness is highly persuasive,

But beyond my control

The bricks in the bowl

Are now lodged, and they’re very abrasive.”

f7 Stewart was a Kansas native who studied through a music

scholarship at the Juilliard School in Manhattan and moved to Newport

Beach with his wife Jerry in 1949.

James Felton’s “Newport Beach, The First Century, 1888-1988” tells us

Stewart, also a talented violinist who performed in area convalescent

homes, lived in Corona del Mar. The Corona del Mar Civic Assn. eventually

made him chair of its acquisition committee. Stewart and his wife also

held numerous fund-raisers for the city.

His building accomplishments included solar-energy homes.

The Newport Harbor Chamber of Commerce named him “Man of the Year”

more than two decades ago and he won the Orange County Bar Assn.’s

Liberty Bell Award and others.

Richard Luehrs, president of the Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce,

said the chamber also named him Citizen of the Year in 1979.

One of Stewart’s most known works is an epic poem called “The Legend

of Thomas Rule,” which concludes Felton’s history book and is about one

of Newport Beach’s folk heroes.

Among the middle stanzas are these lines:

o7 “Or silently return below

From whence I called you up today,

And through the ages you will row

To help me fashion Newport Bay.

I have such wondrous plans for it --

We’ll have a city that’s a gem;

I’ll change each cove, each bar and spit

Each cliff will be a diadem.”

f7

* Do you know of a person, place or event that deserves a historical

Look Back? Let us know. Contact Young Chang by fax at (949) 646-4170;

e-mail at young.chang@latimes.com; or mail her at c/o Daily Pilot, 330 W.

Bay St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627.