Peter Stewart

1938 - 2024

Peter Stewart

1938 - 2024

Seattle, WA-Peter Ross Stewart died on November 27 at his home in Seattle of natural causes. Born September 8, 1938 in Salt Lake City to Martha R. and Justin C. Stewart, he spent his early years with his parents in Washington DC and New Jersey. The family returned to Salt Lake after WWII where Peter attended Stewart Primary and Junior High Schools and East High School. He enlisted in the US Army after high school and later attended the University of Utah, earning a BS in Mechanical Engineering. In 1961 he married Jean Douglas in Salt Lake City. They moved to Seattle where Peter began a career with Boeing and earned his MS at the University of Washington. During the economic downturn at Boeing in the 1970's, Peter had the opportunity to establish Pine Street Box Works, hand crafting beautiful carrying cases for recorders, music stands, and jewelry boxes. He returned to work at Boeing in 1978 and retired from the company in 1995.

Over his lifetime, Peter manifested his joy in music by teaching clarinet and recorder, singing Renaissance rounds with friends, and collecting and playing an array of Baroque instruments – the shawm, sackbut and rebec – and a range of recorders and viols. In the 1970s, he played with the Goode Companye Consort, an early music group, and in the late 1990s, when his attention turned toward viols, Peter became an active member of Pacific Northwest Viols, a chapter of the Viola da Gamba Society of America, during which time he authored an advice column for the chapter's newsletter related to etiquette for viol players under the pen name, Miss Fret-Knot. He served a term on the board of directors of the Viola da Gamba Society of America in the early 2000s.

Peter is survived by his daughters, Rachel (Brad) and Leslie (Noah); grandchildren, Heather (Tom), Holly (Michael), Josephine, and Nico; and great grandchildren, Ruth and Douglas Peter. He is also survived by his sister and brother-in-law, Heather and Mike Dorrell, and many cousins in the Stewart and Ross families. Peter donated his brain and body to the University of Washington ACT Study and Willed Body Program. A celebration of life will be held in Seattle on January 18th.