Stewart Rex Wright, M.D.

With very sad hearts we announce the passing of our beloved father, Stewart Rex Wright, on March 26. Stewart was born in 1935 in Terre Haute, Indiana, to Maybelle and Rex Wright, who became an executive with the American Can Company. Along with his older sister, Sandy, the family moved to St. Louis, which made Stew a life-long Cardinals baseball fan, and then to Oak Park, Illinois, for some years, before settling on Long Island, N.Y., where Stew attended Garden City High School. There, he was a member of the Trojans football team and especially remembered playing against and tackling the famed running back Jimmy Brown of Manhasset High. In 1953, Stew entered Yale University, where he was a proud member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity and studied history at Calhoun College. One summer in college, an adventurous Stew and a few friends climbed to the top of the Grand Teton in Wyoming, where darkness caught them descending and they spent one frigid night on the mountain. In a fortuitous twist of fate, he would meet Emily Graham of Connecticut College on a blind date at the 1955 Yale-Harvard football game and they were instantly smitten. They married in 1957 and Emily, the love of his life, would later help put him through medical school at Yale with jobs at IBM and teaching elementary school. His internship and residency were at Tufts-New England Medical Center with an additional residency in internal medicine at Boston Veterans Hospital. Stew joined the Army which took Emily and him and their young family to Tripler Army Hospital in Hawaii in 1966. After his military service, he and Emily moved the family to California, where he practiced and taught at USC Medical School, and later the family settled in Redlands in 1971 when he accepted the position of Director of Gastroenterology at the San Bernardino County Medical Center. As luck would have it, Redlands would be their beloved home for the next 50+ years. Stew continued work at various local hospitals over the years, and in 1994 co-founded the Mountain View Surgery Center with a few other doctors, where he worked until his retirement. Along the way, Stew’s astute medical care and dedication endeared him to many of his colleagues and patients during his over 50-year career. He also was an avid sailor and spent many weekends on his cherished sailboat Daydream in Newport Beach, where he and his crew proudly raced in over 30 Newport to Ensenada boat races and won their division several times. He was a member emeritus of the Redlands Country Club and enjoyed toiling in his and Emily’s avocado and citrus groves, and playing paddle tennis with friends on Sundays. Later he and Emily moved to Plymouth Village, where he thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the community. He will be greatly missed by all who knew and admired his kind, gracious demeanor, including by his loving children: John of Teton County, Montana; Sarah and her husband Stu, of Belvedere, CA; Peter of Pasadena, CA; and Susan and her husband Robert of Foothills, Alberta, Canada; as well as grandchildren, Clare and her husband Jim; Will; and Madelyn and her husband Connor. Stew is predeceased by his beautiful Emily. The family would like to acknowledge the dedication of his kind and capable caregivers who became his good friends.