BAR HARBOR — Dr. Winston George Stewart, 88, passed onward June 22, 2012. He was born Feb. 10, 1924, in Barre, Vt., to Scottish parents, Jonathan Stewart and Violet Lilly.

Stonework brought the Stewart family to Mount Desert Island, and Winston spent many hours as a young boy working side by side with his dad at Hall Quarry. Working with his dad would teach him a work ethic that would last a lifetime. Winston and his father built three homes on Mount Desert Island, one of which was made out of granite. Shortly after playing in the boys’ state championship basketball game for Pemetic High School, he entered the United States Army Air Corps during World War II in 1941 at the end of his junior year. He was 17 years old. Originally trained to be a meteorologist, the usage of radar played an instrumental role in him being retrained and billeted as a commissioned flight officer. Upon discharge, at the end of World War II, he enrolled at Bowdoin College, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1949. After that he attended McGill University in Montreal, earning a medical degree. The Korean Conflict prompted more service to his country, but this time as a naval medical officer serving on an ice breaker off Greenland. It was later that he met his future wife, Dr. Nancy Barbara Heron, also a naval medical officer, while at the Navy Yard in New York. Drs. Winston and Nancy were married July 3, 1953, and after being discharged from the Navy in 1955, together they started a medical practice in Fitchburg, Mass. Never forgetting the special lure of the island home where he grew up, he returned to Mount Desert Island and after partnering with his wife, Dr. Nancy, along with Dr. Cooper, they started the Medical Associates of Mount Desert Island. Dr. Winston and Dr. Nancy were instrumental in recruitment of the physicians that now practice at Medical Associates. He was the designing architect for what is now the emergency room of Mount Desert Island Hospital. They were civically involved in many progressive movements throughout Maine. Most important to Drs. Winston and Nancy was a woman’s right to choose, and the state legality of that right, along with Civil Liberties Union Statutes being adopted in the state of Maine. Dr. Winston was also one of the Founding Fathers of the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor. He retired from medical practice in 1988. Dr. Winston took great pride in his grandchildren, watching them grow up, going to baseball, basketball and football games. He was their biggest fan. Winston had a great appreciation of the arts and would open his house to the performers of the Bar Harbor Festival and would donate musical instruments to exchange students, some of whom would go on to become professional musicians. In 1991, Winston and Nancy, along with their son, Jonathan II, purchased Hinckley’s Dreamwood Cottages, and his family continues to operate that business. In August of 2000, his wife of 47 years, Dr. Nancy, passed away after a courageous battle with cancer. Dr. Winston stayed busy throughout the years working on maintenance at his cottage rental business and traveling to Florida during the winter months. He also enjoyed many hobbies including music, sailing, bicycling, reading and writing, and is an accomplished painter of both oil and water color. Winston was always a very clear and independent thinker and took great pride in that retrospection. An accomplished bass guitarist, he performed, often professionally, but would not hesitate to donate his musical talents to the elderly residents’ entertainment at several of the local nursing homes. One year after he and his family moved back to Mount Desert Island, he purchased a sewing machine and he decided that we would make clothes for all members of the family, and he also learned to weave a rug. Dr. Winston was the true definition of a Renaissance man.

Winston was predeceased by his sister, Jeannie Stewart, in 2003. He is survived by his son and daughter, Jonathan and Vangi Stewart of Bar Harbor; along with a daughter, Laurel Stewart, of Newport. He is also survived by two grandsons, Jonathan Taylor Stewart and Winston Dakota Stewart, both of Bar Harbor.

The family would like to thank the Strauss Center, The Island Connection, and the Hancock County Home Health Care, in particular Emma.