Ulster University professor and noted political writer Henry Patterson pays tribute as ex-pat brother Stewart dies while deputy mayor of county in Canada
Noted political writer and Ulster University academic Henry Patterson pays tribute to his brother, who has died in Canada at the age of 65. Stewart Patterson, who emigrated in his early teens, was Deputy Mayor of a rural region of Ontario and passed away after battling illness in recent months. Remembers Henry:
My younger brother, Stewart, was born in Bangor, County Down, in September 1959. At the time I was 11 and our sister, Prue, was 10. Our father William, “Billy”, was a machinist in a local hosiery factory and also an activist in the National Union of Hosiery Workers and the Northern Ireland Labour Party.
In 1961 he was appointed to the full-time union post of Northern Ireland Regional Officer. Our mother, Margaret (nee Stewart), was from Portrush and had met our father when he was in training camp with the North Irish Horse regiment in 1940.
In September 1970 our father died of cancer at the age of 52. By then, Prue had emigrated to Canada and I was about to start postgraduate study in England. Stewart remained with our mother in our council house in Bangor until April 1974 when our mother died suddenly.
Stewart then went to live with Prue and her husband, Elmar Steiner, in Hamilton, Ontario. After the loss of our father and the trauma of our mother’s death and at the age of 14, he had to deal with a move to a new country and a new school.
With the support of Prue and Elmar and our extended family in Hamilton where many had emigrated in the 1950s, Stewart would thrive in Canada.
Later in the 1970s, Stewart moved to Jarvis in south Ontario where he got a job as a millwright in Stelco’s Lake Erie steelworks. Following in our father’s footsteps he was active in the steelworkers’ union for 30 years. He was also an activist in the NDP - the New Democrats, Canada’s Labour Party.
He was active in [volunteer community group] the Jarvis Lions Club, where he served as local governor and district chair. He called his fellow Lions “my other family”.
His union and community activism gave him a high profile and, in 2018, he was elected to Haldimand Council. He was re-elected in 2022 and was Deputy Mayor at the time of his death.
In 1990 he met Nancy Welsh from a local farming family and they were married in 1992. Nancy and their two children, Dylan and Darby, were the centre of his universe and together they made the time since his diagnosis a happy one.
Stewart maintained an interest in Northern Ireland politics. He was a Van Morrison fanatic, trying to see as many of his concerts as he could in Canada and the United States.
He bore his illness with courage and was active on council business until a few weeks ago. He wrote his own death notice and encouraged his many friends to celebrate his life at Jarvis Community Centre for a “final toast” on December 4.