M.Y. Stewart, 82, etiquette authority

KEWANEE, Ill. - Proper-manners authority Marjabelle Young Stewart, 82, the author of more than 20 books and ruler of the "White Gloves" and "Blue Blazers" children's etiquette empires, has died.

Mrs. Stewart, who was also famous for the annual list of best-mannered cities she began issuing in 1977, died Saturday night of pneumonia at a nursing home in Kewanee, said her daughter, Jacqueline Ramont, of Danville. Mrs. Stewart had lived in Kewanee since moving there from Washington in 1962.

Her career took her to the White House to teach manners to the daughters of Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon, and later made her a fixture on the talk-show circuit, but her early years were anything but aristocratic.

"She was a self-made woman," Ramont said. "She always said a good handshake and good table manners would get you anywhere."

Mrs. Stewart was the second of four daughters born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, to Marie and Clarence Cullen Bryant, a great-grandson of poet William Cullen Bryant. The couple divorced while the girls were young, and turned them over to a local orphanage called Children's Square, where one of them died.

Although Mrs. Stewart often spoke of the rigors of her orphanage upbringing, she also credited the training she received there for her knowledge of etiquette, said her granddaughter, Erin Marjabelle Albert.

After reuniting with her mother, Mrs. Stewart lived on an Iowa farm and graduated from high school in Council Bluffs. In 1941, at age 17, she married scientist Jack Davison Young and moved with him to wartime Washington, where she worked in a naval yard before being recruited for a modeling assignment. She soon became one of Washington's top models, and later founded a modeling agency with two other women.

Her modeling work brought Mrs. Stewart into contact with Washington society, and while temporarily separated from Young in the 1950s, she became friendly with the young John F. Kennedy. Another social contact, the late humor columnist Art Buchwald, later persuaded her to collaborate with his wife, Ann, on a light-toned etiquette book. The result, White Gloves and Party Manners, became an unexpected best-seller. Mrs. Stewart collaborated on two other books with Ann Buchwald before going on to solo authorship.

Mrs. Stewart and Young eventually divorced, and in 1962 she married attorney William E. Stewart and moved with him to Kewanee, where he was contemplating a congressional run.

Impressed with the success of his wife's books, William Stewart and several of his friends founded a business based on the etiquette-training technique she had been offering in classes for professionals and college students. The results were trademarked etiquette classes for children, "White Gloves" for girls and "Blue Blazers" for boys. The classes were eventually offered in conjunction with department-store chains in 800 cities nationwide.

Albert said her grandmother was considered for the post of White House protocol chief by another personal friend, President Ronald Reagan.

Mrs. Stewart is survived by her husband, two children, three grandchildren and one great-grandchild.