DARTMOUTH — Christina Knowles Styan, widow of Garth O. Styan, was much more than her extensive list of memberships in various organizations and the positions of leadership she often held; she was loved and respected by family, friends, associates and her faithful Chronicle readers. She was a woman of wonderful character who laughed easily and often, and was always up for planning a party, dance or dinner. In recent years, sailing her boats Ricatif and then Tamerlane across the bay and to all the islands provided a major source of pleasure, as did gardening, but her true joy was her granddaughter Gwen, now twelve years old.
She loved a beautiful brief quote from Robert Manry which she found in the obituary of her cousin Dr. Eliot Knowles Jr. last year; it fit her so well. “Nothing made by man is more beautiful than a sailboat underway in fine weather and to be on that boat is as close to Heaven as I ever expect to get.”
Chris was proud of the fact she went back to college at UMass and graduated with honors, at 56 years old, with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, and then used that degree for the next fourteen years in her position as a writer and photographer for The Chronicle, covering Dartmouth and Westport. She recently won a New England Newspaper and Press Association first-place award for a feature photo of a Dartmouth High School art student and his work. We have heard from Chronicle readers that they will miss her articles.
There is no doubt Chris will also be dearly missed by the Buzzards Bay Garden Club, the Wamsutta Club, the New Bedford Yacht Club, the Humane Society and Shelter Southcoast. The Smith Neck Friends Meeting will miss their leader and advertising specialist, and the work she has done to secure grants to preserve the historic Apponegansett Meeting House and putting it on the National Register of Historic Places.
She loved her work in the St. Luke’s Hospital Auxiliary and her time as president there as much as she did with the Dartmouth Community Health Association’s Well Baby Clinic, where she also served as president. She was also proud to have served her town as a town meeting member for several years, and later as a newspaper reporter covering countless town board and committee meetings and town issues.
Christina was predeceased by her husband of 35 years, Garth O. Styan. She is survived by children George T. Berish and Erica S. Mitchell, and granddaughter Gwyneth Mitchell. Brian E. Hawes has been her significant other for the last ten years. Christina was born on Nov. 14, 1943, in Hartford, Conn., the daughter of the late James Tiffany Knowles and Susan Hubert Knowles.
Arrangements: A private immediate family graveside service and burial was held. A life memorial service will be held for family and close friends at the Wamsutta Club in New Bedford on Nov. 16 at 1 p.m.
In lieu of flowers, Christina would be honored if you helped to keep her legacy alive by donating to the Apponegansett Meeting House Preservation Fund, c/o Dartmouth Monthly Meeting of Friends, 594 Smith Neck Road, South Dartmouth, MA 02748.