Stewart Lloyd Widdowson III: March 1, 1947 – Nov. 9, 2019

Stewart Lloyd Widdowson III (Chip to all who knew and loved him) passed away on Saturday, Nov. 9, after a long illness. Shedding one final tear as he left his one and only love, his wife Ann, he slipped through the veil to meet his friend and Savior.

Chip grew up in Granada Hills, Calif. After serving a two-and-a-half-year mission in the Holland/Amsterdam mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, he went back to BYU. While there, he met and married Ann Fisher, after a long courtship of six weeks.

After graduating from BYU in 1968, he was awarded an Army medical scholarship at Northwestern University’s dental school. So, the tiny family, who had been joined by their first daughter, Jennifer, headed to Chicago, Ill. Chip graduated from Northwestern in 1976 and his first assignment was to the 50th General Hospital at Fort Ord, Calif. With another daughter, Terra, now in tow, the family headed west. After four years, when his tour of duty ended, Major Widdowson and family (who had now added a son, Jonathan) headed north.

Chip opened his first dental practice in 1981 in Magnolia, Wash., where some of his patients would drive up to 25 miles to see him. After selling the Magnolia office five years later, he joined Michael Meiers at Silver Lake Family Dental, where for 33 years he served the community and his patients with kindness and excellent dental care. That same year, they added a second son to their family when they adopted Jason, Ann’s nephew, after the death of his mother.

Chip was, in all ways, a one-of-a-kind man who was fiercely loved by his wife of 50 years and his children. He was a selfless man of faith who taught his children to love and serve others by his constant example of non-judgmental service to so many. He was a great teacher; he taught his children to ski, play tennis, play golf, and took them boating often. He was a lighthearted jokester whose first answer to any question was a corny wise crack. Serious answers were hard to come by as he never took himself too seriously. His family basked in his unconditional love all of his life and his ability to be “present in the moment” was a gift to them; unless of course, he fell asleep, which he often did but always denied.

Chip enjoyed playing the guitar and the piano. He loved sweets and hid them everywhere. When confronted with one of his stashes he would declare “They were on sale!” His one fault that dismayed and mortified his children was his tendency to walk through a room, a store, or anywhere really, leaving “Barking Spiders” in his wake without acknowledgment or apology! When his children loudly protested, he would only reply, “What?”.

Chip was as kind as he was faithful. He loved serving in the Seattle Temple for the last two years and was yearning to go back. He was always taking small gifts or treats to those people he wanted to look after. He was gentle with his children and grandchildren. He loved a house full of family and was always affectionately teasing his grandchildren, Michael, Jordan, Mia, ViviAnn, Benjamin, Isaac, Isabella and Elliot, and nothing brought him more joy than they did.

Their parents, Gabe and Jennifer Payne, Jon and Mindy Widdowson, and David and Terra Oporto, agree that there was no better grandfather for their children.

The ache that his absence from his family brings is alleviated only by the knowledge that he is happy where he is and the sure knowledge that they will one day be reunited.