We've Lost a Great One

 

Jeff––Saturday

 

Yesterday, I received a phone call from “Mystery Mike” Bursaw. He asked if I’d heard about Steele Curry.  Steele and Mike had been instrumental in shanghaiing me in 2012 onto the Bouchercon National Board of Directors. Steele and Mike co-chaired Bouchercon back then, and the three of us had become great friends. 

 

The news was heartbreaking, but not unexpected.  Steele had told me he was ill. Still, it’s hard to think of Steele as gone. Barbara and I send our heartfelt condolences to his wife Judy and their extensive family…of relatives and admirers.

 

Steele and I shared a deep love of Greece, his ties being to the island of Skiathos and mine to Mykonos. Each summer we promised to make it to the other’s island home, but summertime flows by so quickly on Greek islands that we never got around to fulfilling those pledges.  Barbara, though, had regularly spent her summers in the 1990s on Skiathos so there always was a generous amount of “did you know” and “do you remember” reminiscing whenever we’d get together with Steele and Judy on one of their regular trips from their Calgary home to our non-Greek island home––Manhattan to be precise. 

 

We’d meet in a Greenwich Village Tuscan restaurant that had become their favorite, where we’d reflect about Greece, talk about our lives, families, how we got to where we were today, and of course, about the world of mystery. Steele had a way of making you feel important in his eyes and applied that gift toward inspiring the many youngsters he mentored, charities he supported, business colleagues, and those who shared his passion for the mystery/thriller world.

 

Steele, together with Mystery Mike, and George Easter (publisher of the mystery world’s bible—Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine) were a triumvirate that kept their collective fingers firmly on the pulse of our mystery world. Among their gifts to us all was the creation of an unofficial annual dinner at Bouchercon designed to welcome up and coming stars of crime writing into the fold.

 

On a personal level, Steele humbled me each year by buying my latest Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis Greece-based mystery and setting it aside until he was back on his beloved Skiathos where he’d make mine the first book he’d read that summer in compiling his annual “My Greek Reading Feast” article for Deadly Pleasures.

 

Steele was beyond a good friend; he was an exemplary caring and generous soul. 

 

What follows are two obituaries. One written by George Easter and the other on behalf of the family of Duncan Steele Curry.  Yes, Duncan was Steele’s first name–a mystery he’d kept well-hidden from many until the end.  

 

God bless you, dear friend. May your memory be a blessing for eternity.

 

––Jeff

 

 

George Easter, Steele Curry, RCMP

November 26, 2024 George Easter

 

The Passing of Steele Curry

 

This is a sad time for the mystery/thriller community. Steele had spinal cancer that metastasized and became untreatable. His passing was a blessing because he was in a lot of pain.

Steele was a good friend and a great champion of mystery/thriller fiction. And most importantly, he was a good person, who helped a lot of people along life’s way. I’ll miss hearing Steele’s booming base voice telling me, with an edge of excitement, what I should read next.

As a contributor to Deadly Pleasures, he was the “go-to” guy when it came to spy fiction. But he also enjoyed a good mystery or action thriller. I would often get e-mails from him with recommendations for good reading. And, as our tastes were similar, I often read what he recommended. Jeff Popple, another DP contributor, had similar experiences with Steele.

For several years Steele would provide us with annual columns called My Greek Reading Feast, in which he would give us short reviews of about thirty books that he had read while in residence at his family’s Greek villa that he and his wife Judy visited each summer.

Steele was influential in urging me to create the Barry Award for Best Thriller and it was my pleasure in 2017 to present him with The Don Sandstrom Award for Lifetime Achievement in Mystery Fandom.

 

He also served on the Barry Award nominating committees for a number of years and would frequently proof-read sections of Deadly Pleasures for me.

Steele also served for a couple of years as the Co-Chair of the National Bouchercon Board (along with Mystery Mike Bursaw) during which time he whipped it into shape so it ran as a non-profit should be run. He, with the help of others, created a Best Practices Manual so that future Bouchercons could operate more smoothly.

A few years ago his large collection of espionage and mystery fiction was donated to the University of Calgary. It was so large and comprehensive that the University has added a wing onto its library to house the collection. I look forward to visiting it when I attend the Calgary Bouchercon in two years.

Steele will be remembered for years to come and will be greatly missed by his friends and family.

 

 

 

 

November 24, 2024  Family Obituary

 

August 4, 1940 – Winnipeg, Manitoba

November 24, 2024 – Calgary, Alberta

 

Beloved husband, father, grandfather, uncle, and brother, Steele Curry died peacefully, surrounded by close family on Sunday, November 24, 2024.

 

Predeceased by his parents, Constance Noreen Curry (Murphy) and Peter Duncan Curry, and his sister Kathleen Curry, Steele was a larger-than-life international man of mystery, whose impact was felt on everyone who met him.

 

He is mourned by his adoring wife of 44 years, Judy, his loving son Beau, his devoted daughters, Serena (grandson Jack and his father Tyler) and Jade (grandson Zephyr and his father Mike), his brother-in-law Stephen (wife Rhonda), his brothers, Mark and Patrick, and his nephews and nieces, Ben and Sophie, Sabrina, (husband Jon, Cole and Julia), Zachary (wife Lynn, Victoria and Charlie), Matthew (wife Brooke), Simon (Eloise and Milo), and Xavier and Sylva.

 

Steele had a long and notable business career. After attending Ridley College, Steele received his BA from Stanford University in 1962 and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1964.  His more than 40 years of business experience included being the CEO of Revelstoke Companies, a successful publicly traded retail organization. He also started a tool rental business with The Home Depot and created Gobbles Restaurant.

 

While Steele’s businesses were successful and varied, it was his involvement in the boards, charities, and mentoring that made him truly legendary. As a board member of The Salvation Army, Steele raised countless dollars for the Centre of Hope. He was a member of the Business Council on National Issues and devoted countless hours to the Alberta Mentor Foundation for Youth (AMFY), where he served as the board chair from 2003–2008, and vice-chair of the board of directors of Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Calgary and Area from 2008–2016. Not only was Steele pivotal in the merger of AMFY and Big Brothers and Big Sisters, but he also served as a mentor to multiple protegees, fostering deep connections with many young students who he kept in contact with throughout his entire life (and who held a very special place in his heart). His love of mentoring extended so far that he wrote the Citizen of the World Guides, in order to share his wisdom on tips for success in life.

 

Those who knew Steele will know that among travelling, ski trips to Aspen, visits to East Meadows, and later in life, summers in Skiathos, Greece, with his family and friends, his real passion (other than mentoring) was reading and collecting mystery novels. From 2008–2012, Steele was a member of the board of directors of the Bouchercon National organization and for the latter year, served as Co-Chair together with Mike Bursaw. At the Bouchercon convention in 2017, he received the Don Sandstrom Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement in Mystery Fandom and served on the Barry Award nominating committee for Deadly Pleasures magazine (for which he was a contributor, most notably his annual column, My Greek Reading Feast, where he would detail his numerous reads each summer). Steele’s comprehensive collection of books was so formidable that in 2021, he donated it to the University of Calgary, which agreed to keep it intact as The Steele Curry Mystery, Espionage and Thriller Collection.

 

Steele’s larger-than-life personality enriched everyone around him. His booming voice and joie de vivre will forever be unmatched. He shone a bright light of kindness and encouragement on everyone lucky enough to know him. He will be greatly missed.

 

Donations can be made in memory of Steele to the charity of your choice. The family kindly requests no flowers.

 

Condolences, memories, and photos may be shared and viewed with Steele’s family here.

 

In living memory of Steele Curry, a tree will be planted in the Ann & Sandy Cross Conservation Area by McInnis & Holloway Funeral Homes, Heritage, 1708 – 16th Avenue NW, Calgary, AB, T2M 0L7, Telephone: 403-299-0100.