William
Robert Steffen:
He was born at the
Steffen homestead near Spearmore, Oklahoma, on November 13, 1909, as the third
child of "Birda" and "Pete" Steffen. His mother died
when he was 12 years old. He and his brother Jim went to live with their
father's aunt and uncle, Carl and Teresa Jones on a farm three miles west of
Jet, Alfalfa County, Oklahoma. The boys attend school in Jet where William
graduated from the local high school in 1928.
As soon as he had his degree in hand he headed west to Harper and Beaver Counties where he lived with his mother's brother, Arlie and Mabel Beckwith on their farm. He ended up living in Oklahoma City living with his sister Maybelle in an apartment on 4th street. During this time, he met and fell in love with Dorothy Christian.
In 1939 he struck out for California on his own and got a job working for Lockheed Aircraft in Burbank helping to build airplanes for England under the Lend Lease Program. In 1941 Dorothy came to California to visit a girl friend and Bill would not let her go home.
They were married at St. Teresa's Catholic Church in Los Angeles. He obtained a Federal Communication license and went to work for CBS in the early 1950's where he worked on the television shows of Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Red Skeleton, Art Linkletter and Sol Hurok. While at CBS he did audio work for the Jet Propulsion Laboratories on the space trips to the moon. He was the Technical Director in Studio 19 for 10 ½ years and retired from CBS after 25 years of service in 1972.
He
and Dorothy retired to Deming, New Mexico. In 1997 the couple moved to Klamath
Falls, Oregon, to be near their daughter, Karen Reese. Bill and Dorothy shared
59 ½ years of marriage until her death on October 20, 2000. He visited his
sister Maybelle in Oklahoma City in the spring of 2001 and started seeing Martha
Jo Steffen, the surviving spouse of his younger brother Jim who had died in
1999. They went on a cruise from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, to
the Hawaiian Islands in late September of 2001 and decided to get married in
Scottsdale, Arizona, on November 20 of that year. They live at 11300 Quail
Creek Road #3 in Oklahoma City, OK 73120. Martha Jo and Bill have attend
annually the CBS dinners for CBS retirees and plan to be at the gala dinner on
November 2, 2003. Bill will celebrate his 94th birthday in November.