Esther Ma Stuart 馬 意雲

Esther Ma Stuart passed away on Friday after a valiant battle against cancer. Esther was a wonderfully kind, forever youthful and ever-giving person who touched the lives of many people. Esther was born in Kowloon, Hong Kong. She attended Taiwan Provincial Cheng Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics. Esther came to the United States in 1961 to attend graduate school and earned a Master of Science degree in Physics from the University of New Mexico. She pursued a career in information technology and was a programmer for 26 years at IBM.Esther is survived by her loving husband, Donald Stuart whom she met in graduate school; devoted children, Paul Stuart of Redwood City, Ellen Stuart of Middletown, NJ and Emily Stuart of Stuttgart, Germany; and one beautiful grandchild, Bennett Stuart Nolting. She is also survived by her brother, Jonathan Ma of Tucson, AZ; sister, Yeelan Wang of Woburn, MA.Her warm, adventurous spirit, illuminating smile, kind and generous heart, and her never-ending devotion to helping and loving those around her will be missed by all who knew her. She was truly remarkable.Friends and family are invited to a visitation and funeral service on Monday, Jul. 18, 2016 from 4-7 p.m. in the Chapel of Roses at Oak Hill Funeral Home & Memorial Park, 300 Curtner Ave., San Jose 408-297-2447.Esther loved giving to others and supporting those in need. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to Cityteam – San Jose, a nondenominational Christian non-profit serving the poor, the homeless, and the lost in the local San Jose area. Donations can be made online at https://www.cityteam.org/ways-to-give/index.php

Esther's Life Story:

Esther Ma Stuart (馬 意雲) was born on August 13, 1938 in Kowloon, part of British Hong Kong. She described her family as atypical - a modern Chinese family. Her father had traveled to France as a young man to study agronomy. His career evolved from professor, to a military post, to the sugar industry. Esther's mother was the daughter of a minister, had learned English as a girl, and had attended college in Shanghai. Esther was the 4th of 6 children, with an older sister, 2 older brothers, a young brother, and a younger sister, born in 1945.

It was a turbulent time in the world. Immediately following the attach on Pearl Harbor, Japan also attached the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Esther was living in Hong Kong at that time with her mother, 2 older brothers, a younger brother and their maid. Her father was working in Inland China and could not join them when the Japanese crossed the border into Hong Kong in December of 1941. The British Armed Forces were overwhelmed and surrendered.

It was the beginning of 1942, and Esther and her family were like thousands of other Chinese who had taken shelter in the tiny British Colony and were ordered to leave. They were forced to return over the border back to the Chinese territory, leaving Hong Kong on foot. Esther and her younger brother were carried by friends and fellow refugees from their church. They journeyed by foot for over a week, then traveled by boat and vehicle farther inland to a more secure territory under the Chinese control. Here they were finally able to join their father in Lun-Pen, County Len, at his new assignment in farming community for the refugees approximately 200 miles north of Hong Kong.

After leaving Hong Kong, Esther's younger brother, Armand, died due to the lack of proper health-care at that time. Her family moved to Ma-Fou-Shu (County Len), a small, ancient town by a scenic river, where Esther started formal schooling. In 1945, Esther's younger sister Yeelan was born, the Japanese surrendered, and her family returned to live in the provincial capital Canton. During the 3 years they lived there, Esther and her siblings had better schools and Esther was able to study piano.

Esther's father raised his daughters to have the same opportunities as a boy would have. He expected his girls to study and he would take Esther riding horses when she was young. When the weekly market day came along, she rode to town, and her father held her hand and visited with friends and neighbors and had tea and dim sum. Unlike her siblings, Esther was regularly included in these activities with the adults.

There was always music in the family, mostly western classical music with Esther's father's violin music and her mother's beautiful singing. One piece they first heard at this time and fondly recalled later in life with new meaning was Ellen's song, of Ave Maria by Shubert. Esther, like her mother would regularly sing duets in the Sunday services at their church.

With the ongoing civil war and the Kuomintang's retreat from Canton in 1948, Esther's family left Canton, China for Taiwan, and Esther's father was offered a good position at the modern sugar company in Taiwan. For the next decade she and her siblings received a good education and had a peaceful life.

Her father was a member of a minority party in Taiwan. At their house in Ping Tung, located in Southern Taiwan, they always had guests and relatives visiting or staying with them. Esther was her mother's great helper, often taking the role of another little mother in the house. In the words of her sister, Esther was the crown jewel of the house of Ma: beautiful, courteous and kind to everyone -- family, friends, guests, and housekeepers loved her.

Esther started as a 4th grader at the Taiwan Sugar Elementary School. Even at such an early age, she was already regarded as one of the loveliest little girls by her schoolmates. I was lucky to Esther by sharing a classroom with her for one year at this school. I was a 5th grader. The teacher alternately taught one group, letting the other group do their homework.

After she graduated in 1950, Esther went to Ping Tung Girl's High School, the best girls' school in the area. The school only accepted students who scored very high on the entrance exam. When she was a 9th grader, she displayed her abundant knowledge of the Bible, by teaching a Bible class for kids on weekends, using part of the family residence as a classroom. All 3 of my younger brothers were her Bible class students, and one of them later became a minister in a Chinese church in Southern California in the mid-1980s. David Ling, one of my brothers, told me "I remember Big Sister Esther as a very kind-hearted and loving person. She was the main reason the three of us became baptized Christians. We love and respect her very much."

During Esther’s time in high school, her family moved again due to her father’s job relocation. As a 10th grader at Ping Tung Girl’s High School, Esther had to learn to adapt to dorm life. Not surprisingly, she adjusted well and made friends easily. Many years later, she was delighted to reconnect with these friends again during her trip to Taiwan in 2009.

Esther was a diligent student and excelled at school. With her high score on the nationwide college entrance examination, she was admitted to National Cheng-Kung University (known as Taiwan Provincial Cheng Kung University at that time) with a major in physics. She made many lifelong friends studying in Tainan. She was in close contact with all her classmates who resided in the US and they regularly planned reunions and meetings throughout the years. Their next class of 1960 reunion was scheduled for this coming September. Needless to say, Esther’s presence and her cheerful voice will be missed. Her classmate and buddy in college Yu Chiung Teng had this to say about her: “Esther never criticized anyone around her; she took care of her parents with 100% dedication; and helped others without reservation. I would compare her to a Panda—very rare species indeed.”

In 1960, when Esther finished college she stayed at Cheng-Kung University and worked for 3 years as a teaching assistant in the Optics Lab of the Physics Department. Then she left an assistantship at Highlands University. Although she was new to the US and was taking Physics classes for the first time in English, she did not miss a beat, and excelled both as a student and in her teaching assistantship. She later recalled her decision to go to Highlands as one of the bravest things she did in life—choosing to pursue her graduate studies in New Mexico, far away from her college classmates who were in New York. At Highlands University, she met Donald Stuart, a fellow graduate student studying Math and Physics.

Don and Esther eventually moved into the graduate program at University of New Mexico, where Esther continued her teaching assistantship. She completed her Master of Science in Physics in 1967 and began her career as a Programmer and NCR (National Cash Register) in Dayton, Ohio. She and Don were married October 4th, 1968 and Esther joined Don in Washington D.C., where he had been working since his graduation in 1966. In Washington D.C., Esther continued working as a programmer. In 1970, Dong and Esther moved to Stanhope, New Jersey, where she began working for Mars Company. At this time, Esther’s younger sister, Yeelan, came to the US to attend graduate school, choosing Rutgers in New Jersey to be close to Don and Esther. In 1972, Esther’s father retired and her parents moved to the US. For the next 35 years, Esther was her parent’s host, guardian, advocate, and caregiver. They relocated with her across 3 states and she was devoted to their care and well-being, in later years providing 24-hour care to them.

Esther and Don started their own family in 1974 while they were living in Stanhope. Paul Donald Stuart was born on January 28, 1974. Shortly after Paul’s birth, Esther and her family moved to Apalachin, New York. Don worked for IBM and the large cluster of offices between Owego, Binghamton, and Endicott was one of the large IBM campuses at the time. On January 18, 1976 Ellen Lee and Emily Louise were born.

In 1979, Esther and Don once again relocated, this time to Lompoc, California for Don’s new project within IBM’s Federal Systems Division (FSD) at Vandenberg Air Force Base. While living in Lompoc, Esther began working at IBM on the Satellite Project (SSD), also at Vandenberg. Her work on this project was part of the preliminary work that went into today’s GPS systems.

Lompoc was the flower capital of California. It was a small town, a happy time for the family, and life moved at an easy pace. Across the street from her house were large flower fields. The city bus would pick you up at your house and drop you off where you needed to go. Esther and her family attended the Church of Nazarene in Lompoc. The girls went to Ballet School. Esther’s mother and father lived in an apartment very close to the house and Esther’s mother would watch the kids in the afternoons. They would often take short trips together to see the space shuttle, to visit Don’s mother and sister in Duarte, California, or to spend the day at Gaviota Beach, Solvang, Santa Barbara, apple picking in Sea Canyon, and so on.

In 1983, Esther and Don relocated for the last time to San Jose, California. Again, Esther’s parents lived nearby and her mother continued to watch over the children in the afternoons while Esther and Don were at work. In San Jose, as always, Esther established a tight knit group of friends, colleagues, and neighbors. The family continued to enjoy short road trips to places like Southern California, Yosemite, Death Valley, New Mexico, San Francisco, and Mendocino. While Esther and Don lived in San Jose, their children graduated high school, then college, and then started their own careers. Esther was their champion in whatever endeavor they would attempt and, more than anything, taught them by the example she set.

Esther cared for her father until his death in 1998 and after she retired from IBM in 2007, Esther continued to care for her mother who had developed dementia until she passed later that year. Upon retirement, Esther made it clear she did not plan on taking it too easy. Always undeterred by new challenges, she took a photography class and enrolled in a painting class – house painting. That was her.

I did not have direct contact with Esther or her brother – my good friend Jonathan, for many years until after I moved back to the Bay Area in 1988. I visited Esther and Don at her San Jose residence around 1990. However, I had been exchanging letters with Esther’s father, my Uncle Ma, once every 2-3 years. He was my cross-generational friend and one of my 3 favorite uncles.

Esther finally returned to Taiwan and Hong Kong in 2009. Don and Esther visited family and friends on this bittersweet return. Some regrets were that of losing contact with her oldest sister and brother. Her oldest sister had stayed in Hainan Island and was raised by their grandmother when the war broke out and through the civil war that followed. Her oldest brother had stayed with their aunt in Taiwan when her parents moved to the US. Both had passed on by the time she was able to return to Taiwan and Hong Kong in 2009. She was able to visit the family and friends that were still there and traveled around Taiwan on this and 2 other visits in the years following.

Esther and I exchanged numerous emails since 2009, and we also had many mini-reunions with local Ping Tung alums in the area. When we ate lunch or dinner together, Dong was always there, with unbelievable patience listening to much discussion or joking in a language he is not familiar with. I felt very happy that Esther married another great human being of her caliber. Esther and Don both did everything to help their friends. They offered me rides to the local airport or to go to LA together, gave me advice or suggestions on a number of health issues, especially on allergy. I was totally amazed by her ability to plan events ahead with meticulous detail. Her training was in Physics and Math, but her managing capability earned the admiration of many friends, including Cathy Sun and Ching-Chou Chen.

Whether you were a bird on the street with a broken leg, a friend of one of her children, or a homeless person on the street, Esther gave her time, encouragement, and support with a happy heart. “She worked so hard her whole life towards her own target of success – having the means to share with others and give to others. In that she found unmatched success.

Esther was a constant to her friends and family, generous, happy, and unfailing in her role as wife, mother, daughter, aunt, and friend. Her strong spirit is almost tangible in the hearts and minds of her family and we find comfort that she is no longer limited by the pains of her body and also in the thought that she continues to watch over us today.