Stephen Everett Chalmers
Born on November 10, 1940, in Evanston, IllinoisPassed April 1, 2025 in Rockledge, Florida
STEPHEN EVERETT CHALMERS (1940 11 10 – 2025 04 01, ætat 84)
Born in Evanston, Illinois, to Roberta Teale Swartz Chalmers and Gordon Keith Chalmers, he was the youngest of four children. He grew up at Gambier, Ohio, where his father was President of Kenyon College and where both parents founded The Kenyon Review in 1939. Schooled in the public schools at Gambier and Mt. Vernon; then at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts (1959). He earned his BA from the University of Ohio at Athens.
Stephen enlisted in the U.S. Army and was posted to Bavaria in Austria and honorably discharged in 1968. His professional career began with Sylvania and GTE in Massachusetts and finished with Boeing International in Palm Bay, Florida, working as a proposal and project manager in Africa (Cameroon and Algeria) and in the US (Massachusetts, Florida and Oklahoma).
He pursued birds, photography, golf, and recreational and competitive sailing (Newport to Bermuda including two trans-Atlantic races all with Arthur B. “Tim” Hanson on Foolscap (formerly Figaro III), to Cork, Ireland and Travemünde, Germany. He cruised westward on the Erie Canal with Richard Piekos and Camila Cavalcante on Beleza in 2019.
Most importantly, Steve supported the Marine Resources Council in Palm Bay, Florida, serving on the Board of Directors for thirty-six years. In a December 23, 1991 article in Florida Today, he was quoted: “My interest is that our community makes informed decisions today for cost and spiritual benefits in the future.” He received the Council’s Stan Blum award in 2019 for Outstanding Volunteer Climate Change Initiative.
Throughout his life Steve maintained an enthusiastic interest in the sciences and shared this with everyone. He wrote poems. He corresponded with Robert Frost and quoted Frost’s poetry, especially “Once by the Pacific”. Another favorite was Walter de la Mare’s “The Listeners.”
Steven was predeceased by his wife of 48 years Maryanne Dombkowski (2024) and his sister Ann Chalmers Watts (2021). He personally provided twenty-four-hour care for Maryanne for the last dozen years of her life. He is survived by his brothers Geoffrey Teale Chalmers and John Putnam Chalmers; his nieces and nephews Gordon Thomas Watts Christopher Lardner Chalmers, Vivien Maynard Watts, Carrie Teale Chalmers, and Sarah Keith Simmons; grandnieces and grandnephews Julia Robin Heron Watts, George Jarvis Watkins, Theodore Sky Chalmers, Samuel Everett Simmons, Tobin Teale Chalmers, Desmond Kelly Watkins, River Fontaine Chalmers, and Maryanne’s nephew Mark Dausch and his daughter Anna.
A memorial celebration is being planned. Steve encouraged anyone who would listen to support the Marine Resources Council, to which memorial gifts can made at https://lovetheirl.org/ or by US mail to MRC, 3275 Dixie Highway, Palm Bay, Florida 32905.
