Meet Jimmy Stewart, continued
Part two of the profile on American movie star James Stewart, a Presbyterian from rural Pennsylvania
Wait! Have you read part one? If not, start here: "Meet Jimmy Stewart."
Three years after “It’s a Wonderful Life” was released, Hollywood’s most eligible bachelor got hitched. James Stewart and Gloria Hatrick McLean were married at Brentwood Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles in August 1949. James was 41 when he married Gloria, who was 10 years his junior. James adopted Gloria’s two sons from her previous marriage, Ronald and Michael, and together they welcomed twin daughters Judy and Kelly into the world on May 7, 1951. James moved his family into their Tudor-style home in Beverly Hills a few months after the twins’ birth, where he and his wife would reside for the rest of their lives.
The Brentwood Presbyterian Church remembers Jimmy and his bride with fondness, and notes that “not everyone knows that Jimmy Stewart was an instrumental part of the building of Brentwood Presbyterian Church.” He started attending services there thanks to his father, Alex, who discovered the sanctuary on one of his visits to Jim’s California home. The story is quoted on the church’s website and follows as such: Alex arrived in California and promptly asked his son where he spent his Sundays. When Jimmy stammered something about there not being one nearby, Alex disappeared down the road, only to return with four other men in tow. “You must not have looked very hard, Jim,” his father said to him, “because there’s a Presbyterian church just three blocks from here, and these are the elders.” Apparently, the congregation was building a new sanctuary, and Alex assured them not to worry: “I told them you were a movie star," he told his son, "and you would help them.”
Jimmy attended services at Brentwood Presbyterian Church for years; was married inside its sanctuary; and would take refuge in its pews when his wife Gloria fell ill after their girls were born. After their daughters' birth, the Stewart family shifted from Brentwood to Beverly Hills, where they began attending Beverly Hills Presbyterian Church. Jim would go on to serve as a ruling elder of this congregation.
James remained active in the Air Force Reserves and attained the rank of brigadier general in July 1959. He retired from service on May 31, 1968. Jimmy was a very private man and refused all attempts by the press for interviews and speaking engagements during his military career and after. He did, however, maintain contact with his wartime pals and attended several reunions as time passed, as his time in the service was so meaningful to him.
He continued to make films, and the last few decades of his career saw him enter the realm of television and make a re-entry into Broadway. He starred in a handful of Westerns, he collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock, and he and Gloria raised their children together. When Jimmy passed from this world on July 2, 1997, more than 3,000 mourners attended his memorial service — Carol Burnett, Bob Hope and Nancy Reagan among them.
His legacy is a lasting one. James Stewart was an actor, accordionist, father, brother, veteran, pilot, son — the list goes on. If you ever find yourself in western Pennsylvania, make a stop in Jimmy’s hometown of Indiana, where his familial roots are still strong and where he was first known as a shy neighborhood boy.
For a long time, Indiana’s only nod toward its connection with Jimmy was a modest historical marker — a plaque outside of 965 Philadelphia Street, his birthplace. But in May 1983, a gala was held in Indiana in honor of Jimmy’s 75th birthday. Thousands attended the grand celebration, where they witnessed the unveiling of a larger-than-life bronze statue of the hometown hero. James was in attendance, of course, and is quoted as saying, “The things I’ve learned here have stayed with me all my life. This is where I made my decisions that certain things were good — hard work, community spirit, God, church, and family.”
In May 1995, The Jimmy Stewart Museum opened in downtown Indiana — an institution organized primarily by residents and community members that highlights Stewart’s film career as well as his life as a World War II military hero, civic leader, and family man.
When he was first approached with the idea of a museum in his honor in the early 1990s, Stewart was hesitant. But after realizing the economic boost such an institution could offer his hometown, which had suffered one of the highest unemployment rates in the state during the 1980s following the closing of the surrounding mines, he acquiesced. The museum was his gift to Indiana, and “It gave a struggling community a chance to come together around an important project,” to which they responded with fervor.
The museum consists of three large galleries, two small galleries, two rotating exhibit hallways, a vintage 50-seat theatre where Stewart’s films are screened, and a gift shop. The collection includes vintage movie costumes and props as well as personal items and awards from Stewart’s life, the majority of which were donated by community members and family. James even handed over one of his two Oscars! The museum lives across the street from the site where The J.M. Stewart and Company Hardware Store once stood. It closed its doors to business in 1961, when James's father Alex passed. In 1968, when the building was razed, the company that was to develop the lot made sure to preserve a sundial that was original to the Stewart's storefront. It has since been donated to the museum across the street.
James Stewart's legacy is alive in Indiana, Pennsylvania — not only through the museum established there in his name, but also in the physical remnants that dot the landscape of the town. There is the sundial that serves as a reminder of the Stewart family store, established along the main thoroughfare in the early 1850s. There is the bronze figure of James standing tall at the courthouse down the street, the gift given to him by his hometown upon his 75th birthday. And at the top of Vinegar Hill, there is the home where a shy young Jimmy pieced together model planes, played the accordion and sang with his family, and adopted the Presbyterian values by which he lived his long and wonderful life.
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