RobertD. Stuart Jr. (April 26, 1916—May 8, 2014)was born in Hubbard Woods and grew up in Lake Forest, although he spent a largeamount of time out west, at the family ranch in Wyoming. He graduated highschool at the Los Alamos Ranch School, New Mexico, earning the honor of the PhiloSherman Bennett Prize in Political Science. He completed his undergraduatedegree at Princeton in 1937 and married Barbara Edwards a year later.
Stuartgained his law degree from Yale in 1946, after serving in the military duringWorld War II, a war he initially objected to. As his son Alexander “Sandy”Stuart explained in an interview with the New York Times after hisdeath, “He wasn’t a pacifist; he wasn’t an isolationist. He believedAmerica should not be engaging in another major European conflict, that weshould be strengthening ourselves.” Stuart, at the age of 24, was thefounding director of the America First Committee, a grass-roots group that advocatedagainst US participation in the war in Europe. The group became one of thelargest organized antiwar groups in US history, reaching 800,000 members, withnotable supporters such as Charles Lindbergh, General Robert E. Wood, andpublisher Robert R. McCormick. The Committee was dissolved after the PearlHarbor attack. Stuart enlisted in the Army and was stationed in Europe.
TheStuart family was intrinsically involved in the development and growth of theQuaker Oats Company. Robert Jr’s great-grandfather, John Stuart, establishedthe North Star Mills Company in Canada in 1850. In 1888 they merged with sevenother oat milling companies to form the American Cereal Company, renaming it in1901 the Quaker Oats Company (after their largest selling product). The familycontinued to run Quaker Oats, managing the marketing and promotions for thecompany and are credited with their marked financial growth through the 1900s.Stuart Jr. became the company presidentin 1962, overseeing their massive expansion from $500 million in 1968 to $2billion in 1979, through expanding the portfolio with companies likeFisher-Price.After his retirement from Quaker Oats in1984, Stuart was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to be the ambassador toNorway, where he served until 1989.
Stuart was married to Barbara for 55 years,with whom he had four children: Robert Douglas III, Sandy, James, and Marian.He remarried in 1995 after Barbara’s death to Lillan Lovenskiold, who survivedhim. Stuart’s mother, Harriet McClure, was thedaughter of Rev. James G. K. McClure, the pastor of First Presbyterian Churchand president of Lake Forest College. The Stuart Commons at Lake Forest College is named for the family.
