Exton Man, Former Restaurant Owner, Dies At 87

Obituary courtesy Mauger Givnish Funeral Home.

Howard Stuewe, 87, passed peacefully on October 19, 2015 at Chester County Hospital. He was survived by his wife Shirley, two children Lori, Chicago, IL, Jeffrey, West Chester, PA, and a brother Charles Stuewe, Knoxville, TN. This past June, they celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary.

Howard was born in November 1927 and grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. At a young age, he enjoyed watching the Cincinnati Reds with his father. He majored in chemistry and achieved a masters degree from University of Cincinnati. He was a very active member in the Theta Chi fraternity.

After college, he accepted a position with Nopco Chemical Company in Harrison, NJ. He began traveling internationally for them and subsequent International chemical and pharmaceutical companies: Stauffer Chemical then Cooper Laboratories in the coming decades. For work, he traveled through Europe and South/Central America and successfully learned and fluently spoke seven languages for his profession.

Shortly after moving to NJ, he married and helped to raise two children in Summit . They lived there for 50 years. His pastime hobby at home was his backyard garden with over a dozen varieties of vegetables.

In the 1980’s, Howard’s boyhood hobby of collecting rare stamps turned into a passion when he bought and successfully ran the William A. Fox Auctions in Springfield, New Jersey. For over a decade, he and his wife and children assisted in the day-to-day operations. They held quarterly auctions in New York and New Jersey area. He was revered as one of the top stamp auction firms during that era.

Upon retirement, in the 1990’s, he purchased a fine dining, 200 seat restaurant in Madison, NJ, Creations Restaurant & Meeting Place operated by his daughter and chef son-in-law, for the next decade. By this time, he enjoyed having grandchildren; his daughter now had two daughters of her own.

After the turn of the century and with many of their friends moving south seeking warmer climates, he sold the restaurant and moved south to Exton PA to be near his son and his two other grandchildren. Still “retired” he got heavily involved with the local adult learning community, Widener University, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI). At OLLI, he started teaching classes on his favorite composer Erich Korngold. He also got involved in many of the committees to help improve and expand their reach. It was over the last 10 years of his life that OLLI was a source of enjoyment and where he met nearly all of his new Pennsylvania friends.

Since OLLI had been such a big part of his current life and the source of his friendships, it seemed only fitting to hold his public “Celebration of Life” at their facilities. Widener University’s OLLI is located at 825 Springdale Drive, Exton, PA 19341. A gathering was held Thursday, October 22, between 4:00pm and 6:30pm. There was no formal program, just a time to visit with the family, share stories with friends and see some new and old photographs while enjoying some great food. That Howard was a straightforward, practical man, his wishes were to have a direct cremation and no public funeral service.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations can be made to OLLI’s expansion fund, a project that he had been working on at the time of his passing. Checks can be made out to: Widener University’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, 825 Springdale Drive, Exton, PA 19341.