Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Mim Stewart still has what it takes to make it

By Daryl Glen

I was delivering some library research I had been asked to do for a friend, who told me to meet him at the Last Call, a locals hangout in Los Gatos.

When I arrived, I sat down next to a petite woman who looked to be in her early 70s. I mentioned I was happy to hear Frank Sinatra playing on the jukebox.

"If only he was singing 'My Happiness,' " she replied. "It was my husband's favorite song. I used to play it on the organ at home, but I lost my sheet music in the Loma Prieta earthquake. I'd give anything for another copy."

She left abruptly and when my friend appeared. I asked who the woman was. "That was Mim," he began. "She's one of Los Gatos' oldest residents. She's 89, and until last year she still worked for the county assessor's office in San Jose." I learned that Mim lives alone in an old house off Summit Road in the mountains, and she comes into town most days to do her shopping. My friend continued, "She stops here for one drink only. She has that drive home, you see."

Anyone who braves that drive every day has my respect--which is perhaps the word that most comes to mind with Mim. Now 91, she has not only lived a long life, but one making her genuinely worthy of respect.

Shortly after our first meeting, I decided to surprise Mim and went down the San Jose Public Library's music archives and made a copy of the sheet music to "My Happiness," which I presented to Mim the next time I was in the neighborhood. She was elated. "Now I can play the organ again," she said. As the months passed, I found myself stopping in to see Mim from time to time, and I learned in short order that long before she went to work for the county assessor, a second career she started in her 60s to supplement her pension, she was one of the town's oldest and most beloved teachers.

All told, she spent 35 years teaching, first at Guadalupe Mines School in Almaden, then at University Avenue School, before it was gentrified into Old Town, and finally at Louise Van Meter School. She retired in 1965 to spend more time with her husband, who died 10 years later. "He was the great love of my life," she told me, "and the times we spent together were the happiest I had in a long and wonderful life. He really was my happiness."

She told me how she and her husband used to go to Santa Cruz and stay at the Dream Inn and walk along the beach arm and arm. The crowd at the Last Call still springs for a room for Mim once a year on her birthday, although now her only companions on the trip are her cherished memories.

Once I asked Mim if she keeps pets on her property. "No," she said sadly. "When I lost my last dog, it was too painful. I get too attached to them, particularly dogs. And besides, there are so many animals to watch in the mountains, although not nearly as many as there used to be. It must be due to all the people from Silicon Valley who have moved in in recent years frightening them away."

Another time I asked Mim if she had ever considered leaving her house in the mountains, the upkeep of which would be difficult for a person of such advanced years, but Mim set me straight when she explained about her daily cold shower each morning and how she gathers wood from the property for the fires she builds from scratch. "I'll be there until they take me out feet first," was her response. On another occasion I discovered Mim is a spiritualist. "If you had to ask me what my philosophy of life is," she explained, "it's that you always get back what you give out. Somewhere, sometime. I try to have only positive thoughts. And it must be working because I'm still here."

I was reminded of a song, "Good times and bum times, I've had them all and my dear, I'm still here ... " Mim interjected with, "Whether skies are gray or blue. Just as long as I'm with you. My happiness."

Then she was off, and I heard a third song in my head, "R-E-S-P-E-C-T ... "

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