Foundation Founder

Henry Stewart’s family were farmers in Franklin County, Kansas, when he was born in February 1892, but they soon moved west, first to Canon City, Colorado, and then to Yamhill County, Oregon, where he grew up. He studied accounting at Linfield College, where he met Hazel Madge Butterfield, born in Iowa in 1892, whose family soon moved to Washington. The two were married in Seattle in 1919. Both were 27. They settled first in Neskowin, but over the next few years, they lived in Metzger, Oregon, Skamokawa, Washington, and Salem. By 1940, they had settled in Portland. 

Stewart worked as a CPA and tax accountant while his wife raised their three daughters and later became the Executive Secretary of Volunteers in America, a position she held for 18 years. In late 1960, the couple moved into cottage 146 at Rose Villa. Almost immediately, Stewart began researching religious, charitable, and educational foundations, encouraged by Rose Villa Administrator W.R. Mefford and Rose Villa Board chairman Hugh Munyan.

In 1962, the Rose Villa Foundation was incorporated, with Mefford, Munyan, and board member Joe Long on the board. Other members were residents Rex Putnam, Anne Keil Robinson, Henry Booth, Florence Kellogg, and  Orma Sullivan. Stewart served as its president until 1966 when ill health forced him to retire. He died later that year. Hazel died in August 1985 at the age of 92.

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