In Memoriam

Stewart G. Flory

Remembrance

Stewart Flory
1964 graduation

by his wife Ellie Flory, posted on Facebook

My heart is heavy. On Friday, November 27 my dear Stewart passed away. Amazingly I was by his side as he slipped peacefully out of this world and I will be forever grateful for this experience. Many of you know he suffered from Alzheimer's for a number of years, so in many ways we all lost him a number of years ago. His passing does not come as a surprise, and part of me is glad he is no longer in the helpless state he would never want to be in. Yet it also leaves a profound void in my world. As a wise friend recently told me, Stewart's death changes nothing (in our everyday lives) and at the same time changes EVERYTHING. Rest in peace, my darling Bear!

Obituary

published on the Gustavus Adolphus College Facebook page

Dear Friends of the Gustavus Classics Department,

Stewart Flory

We wanted to let you know of the death of longtime Gustavus Classics Professor Stewart Flory.

Professor Emeritus of Classics Stewart Gilman Flory died peacefully on November 27, 2020, at Minnehaha Senior Living in Minneapolis. His loving wife Ellie (Gustavus, ’99) was at his side. He had suffered from Alzheimer’s for a number of years.

Stewart was born in New York City and educated at the Choate School and Yale University, where earned his BA and PhD degrees in Classics. After teaching at Amherst College for eight years, he and his first wife Marleen Boudreau Flory, whom he met at Yale and who predeceased him, joined the Gustavus Classics Department in 1978, with Stewart as its first chair. Over the years he, Marleen, and colleagues Will and Patricia Freiert built one of the premier liberal-arts college Classics programs in the country.

An expert in Greek literature and history, Stewart was a beloved and influential classroom teacher, teaching a wide range of courses including Greek, Latin, Greek History, and Myth. His dedication to Classics education led him to direct two National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Seminars for School Teachers on the Gustavus campus.

Stewart was also a distinguished scholar, active in his discipline’s professional life, who won two research fellowships from the NEH and authored numerous reviews, conference papers, and journal articles, as well as an important and highly regarded book on Herodotus’s Histories titled The Archaic Smile of Herodotus (1987). He won the Gustavus Scholarly Accomplishment Award in 1988.

To increase the visibility of faculty scholarship on campus and provide regular occasions for faculty socializing, years ago he founded with Marleen the still-running cross-disciplinary Faculty Shop Talk series at Gustavus. On select Friday afternoons, faculty present and answer questions about their research and artistic creativity projects, preceded and followed by wine, cheese, and, always important to Stewart, convivial “adult” (as he once amusingly called it) conversation.

Along with his love of Classics, Stewart enjoyed watching tennis, reading fiction and The New York Times, traveling in Italy and Greece, and cooking (his talent in the kitchen, especially for Italian and Greek dishes, was the subject of a profile in the Twin Cities Star Tribune newspaper). More recently, he took great delight in his and Ellie’s three young children, Alexandra and twins Noah and Katya.

Brilliant, witty, and generous to students and colleagues alike, many of whom will be forever grateful for his and Marleen’s friendship, hospitality, intellects, senses of humor, and support, Stewart (like Marleen) will be greatly missed.

In addition to Ellie and the aforementioned children, he is survived by his sister, Marjorie A. Flory of Shelburne, Vermont. His only other sibling, older brother and Navy LTJG Harry Russell Flory, Jr., whom Stewart recalled looking up to as a young boy, died in a training-flight crash in 1952.

A gathering to celebrate Stewart’s life will be held at a future date. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in his memory to the American School of Classical Studies in Athens or the Gustavus Classics Department.

In 2010 Stewart was honored by the creation of a named fellowship at Gustavus Adolphus, the Flory-Freiert Fellowship. Read about it here.