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Mary Stuart
Mary Evelyn Stuart passed away on Wednesday, February 5, 2025 at the age of 72 in Canton, Georgia. Born in Ludington on March 4, 1952 to Kenneth and Evelyn (Spencer) Stuart, she spent the first part of life on the family farm south of Custer. By her second grade year, Mary could read almost any book at a fast pace. She read whatever was available from “The Bobbsey Twins at The Seashore” to a couple works of Shakespeare. Early on, Mary made the jump from reading to writing. At 12 and 13 she wrote plays in her own style that might be described as romantic melodrama. She then threatened and cajoled her three siblings into performing those plays on top of the granary, a natural stage in the haymow. There had to be sword fights to bring her brothers onstage.
Quiet and somewhat shy, she caught the Dylanesque, “The times they are a changin'” spirit as a high school senior in 1970, leading a sit down strike at Mason County Eastern High School and influencing several of her friends to slip away from her class during its senior trip to Chicago in order to watch the counterculture musical, “Hair.”
In spite of a 50 year battle with bipolar disorder, Mary earned an LPN nursing degree and worked in many nursing homes and hospitals in Michigan and California. She worked out of a registry in the Los Angeles area, on call to report to whatever medical facility needed a nurse on a temporary basis. She worked in nursing homes, eating disorder units, psych wards, and several years at the UCLA Medical center. Mary took her medical work very seriously, constantly researching in the field. She probably read all 1257 pages of Gray’s Anatomy (the book, not the TV show) a number of times. Family members trusted her advice and information on medical matters.
In 2004, Mary and Al Cagle, a retired lawyer, joined their lives in wedlock which ended with Al’s death in 2015.
Music played a huge part in Mary’s life. Both parents were proficient on the piano, leading to piano lessons and singing at home, school and church. If Mary loved a song on the radio, she would buy the sheet music and practice singing and playing it; one memorable piece in her repertoire was Simon and Garfunkle’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” She loved listening to rock on the many FM stations broadcasting in LA. Mary particularly enjoyed The Doors, The Rolling Stones, The Guess Who, Ian Hunter and many more bands. She was a human encyclopedia of rock trivia. She loved live music and followed several semi-professional bands who played in bars and clubs in the South Bay area. If you visited Mary you could count on attending at least one performance of her “Boys” as she called one group she followed for years.
Mary wrote poetry and fiction for most of her life, collecting rejection slips from The New Yorker, The Atlantic and The Paris Review to name a few publications she tried. The family is publishing a book of her poetry and several of her short stories. Donations to help the with the book may be submitted in the form of checks made out to: James Stuart, guardian, with Mary Stuart’s book noted on the item line. Please mail the checks to Mary Stuart, 2662 E. Wilson Rd., Custer, MI 49405. Those who donate will receive a copy of the book.
Mary was preceded in death by her husband, Al Cagle; her parents, Ken and Evelyn Stuart; and her sister-in-law, Alicia Stuart.
She is survived by her sister, Judith (Alan) Sniegowski; her brothers, James and Thomas Stuart; one uncle; multiple aunts; and multiple nieces and nephews.
Cremation has already taken place and in accordance with Mary’s wishes there will be no funeral services except for a short family attended graveside ceremony this coming summer.
