Guy W. Stoye, 89

DANBURY — Guy Walter Stoye died peacefully on July 27, 2022, at his home in Danbury, at the age of 89.

Guy was born in Bay Shore, NY, on September 6, 1932, to parents Frederick and Rita (Camacho) Stoye. They had three much older sons, Carl, Fred, and Joe. The family lived in Sayville and owned a camp on Fire Island. He spent his childhood on a mill pond and the beaches of Long Island, sparking a lifelong passion for nature. His love of animals drew him to agricultural college, but he soon realized he had no heart for slaughter. After raising some hell in his first car, he matured quickly and did stints as carpenter, postman and tree trimmer, though he revered forests and later came to hate the sound of a chainsaw.

Drafted in 1953, he spent two peacetime years serving in the Army in Germany and exploring Europe. Guy was introduced to Meredith, when his mother married Clarence Lyle. Guy later worked with the Lakes Region Conservation Trust to make sure many acres of Clarence’s Keyser Road property were preserved forever as the Lyle/Stoye Woods. Guy and his German-born wife Erika lived briefly in Ohio before making their home for nearly 40 years on Winona Road in Meredith. They cherished the wildlife and elephant pines, and loved visiting the seacoast with their black dog Posty.

After Erika’s death in 2003, in a storyline out of a movie, Guy serendipitously reconnected with Ann Bannerman Bowes, remarkably also living in New Hampshire. They rekindled a relationship interrupted over 40 years earlier in New York, and remained a devoted couple until his death. They lived on the shore of Danbury Bog where they gardened, kayaked, hiked the surrounding woods, fed the birds, and kept an eye out for bears, deer, moose, beavers, foxes, turtles, bats, eagles, hawks, mergansers, wood ducks, and the returning swallows.

Guy could build, maintain, fix, hoist or invent just about anything. At various times his interests extended to beekeeping, wood carving, guitar, accordion, harmonica, chess, opera, classical and folk music, drawing and cartooning, nature photography, knot tying, riding his BMW motorcycle, and exploring his Venezuelan and German roots and family history. A constant throughout Guy's life was his love of birds. He once nursed an injured loon back to health in his bathtub, and he put out food for songbirds, hummingbirds, crows, ravens, and vultures. Any time he heard Canada geese he rushed out to look up in awe, reminded of his childhood on Long Island. Guy couldn’t pass a dog without stopping to visit. It took him 70 years to warm up to cats, but a black cat named Zorro finally stole his heart. He fed chipmunks, birds and raccoons from his hand, put up bird and bat houses, cuddled snakes, and stopped to help many a turtle across the road. Guy had a deep fascination with wasps, bees, and especially spiders. Any insect found in the house was ushered outside, not swatted.

Guy distrusted traditional medicine and doctors, sought out natural cures and treatments, and fastidiously ate healthy chemical-free food whenever possible. At his famously slow pace, he could eat huge portions and never gain a pound, and was always exceptionally fit and active. Well into his 70s he could scamper up into a tall tree and take down a limb.

Guy fervently believed in population control, writing in 2020, “If world population continues as is, there will continue to be wars, pestilence, diseases such as the Corona virus and ills yet unknown ahead. In the end Planet Earth will be uninhabitable for all living things.” Despising war, Guy proudly displayed a sign on his truck with a quote from Basil O’Connor: “The world can not continue to make war like physical giants and to seek peace like intellectual pygmies.”

He peppered his many letters with quotes he researched and collected, made far easier when he got online later in life, opening up a whole new world of instant communication, digital photography and photo sharing, research, information, and music. Guy was a marvelous and prolific writer of essays, poetry and especially letters. He maintained a vast worldwide correspondence, first by letter and then email, with friends and relatives, and he greatly prized diversity among his friendships.

Most of all, Guy was loved and admired for his decency, good nature, and exceptional thoughtfulness. Although he didn’t love humanity, he cared deeply for individuals, performing countless acts of kindness over a lifetime. Guy sometimes regretted never going out to try to conquer great worlds like business or public affairs, not appreciating that he had achieved greatness in his own way, one small act of grace at a time.

Along with Ann Bowes, survivors include Guy’s sister-in-law, Kay Stoye of Moab, UT; nieces, Rita Hampson of Redmond, WA, Pandy Durkee of Islesboro, ME, and Jasmin Zimmerman of Konstanz, Germany; nephews, Michael Stoye of Grand Junction, CO, Jim Stoye of Corte Madera, CA, Bill Stoye of Salt Lake City, UT, and Daniel Stoye of Marco Island, FL; and his adored caregiver, Deslyn Allan whose loving care allowed him to be at home in his final months.