Stephen B. “Steve” Waite
My father, Steve Waite, a lifelong advocate for individuals with development disabilities, died peacefully of complications from liver failure at the age of 65 on April 30th at the University of Maryland Medical Center. My mom, Loretta, and I were able to be with him at the end and hold his hand.
The 4th of 6 children, Steve was born into a Navy family at Tripler Army Hospital, Honolulu HI, on March 15, 1955 to Radm Dr. Charles L “Charley” Waite and Regina R Waite. As Navy brats, Steve and his siblings moved frequently from naval base to naval base during their youth. These bases included Bethesda MD Naval Hospital, Jacksonville FL Naval Hospital, Philadelphia PA Naval Hospital, and Pearl Harbor HI. These bases served as ports for Navy ships and submarines. Steve befriended many a sailor or crewman of these vessels and got to tour them, including the USS Kittyhawk and USS Forrestal, two of the Navy’s massive supercarriers. Steve was a collector and acquired Navy patches from every ship and submarine he toured. Steve also collected rare American coins throughout his life.
Steve’s father, Radm Dr. Waite, was stationed at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, HI and Bethesda Naval Hospital, near Potomac, MD, several times each during his decorated career. While in Potomac, Steve attended the newly opened Thomas S. Wooten high school in ’70 and was a star halfback his sophomore year on the JV football team. The family then moved back to Pearl Harbor in ’71 and Steve graduated from Radford High School in Honolulu in the class of ’73. Between ‘71 and ’73, he got a job as the manager of a bowling alley on base and learned to play pool from the sailors. He maintained a love of both bowling and pool throughout his life. Steve’s short motorcycle sojourn started and ended here, culminating with a serious accident that resulted in permanent damage to his left knee.
Of all the places the family lived, Hawaii maintained a special place in all their hearts. Despite only rare visits later in life, Steve loved Hawaii and exuded that go-with-the-flow attitude and a spiritual connection to the Earth and the people he met. He was an avid music lover, with a wide, eclectic taste, ranging from classic rock, the blues, folk, to head banging metal. This included artists and bands like the Beatles, Oasis, the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, the Beach Boys, the Allman Brothers, Mark Knopfler, and ZZ Top to name just a few.
After graduating from high school, Steve moved back to Potomac, MD. He was spared from compulsory military service in Vietnam due to the last draft expiring in June of that year. In ’74 he bought his first car, a ‘73 green Ford Bronco and adopted his first dog, a beautiful white German Shepard puppy he named Primo. Between ’74 and ’76, he worked as an assistant mechanic at “Ace” Esworthy’s gas station and garage in Darnestown MD. He learned a lot from this experience and constantly fixed and tinkered with his own cars for the rest of his life. Steve had a knack for fixing and repairing just about anything, not just cars, and his father once called him “a genius in disguise”. He had a truly remarkable explicit memory, also known as conscious memory, which is the intentional recall of information. He always knew where everything was in his incredibly cluttered, but organized storerooms and around the house, and he never forgot a route. He loved maps and was able to store them in his head, so naturally he never used Google maps to get anywhere.
Steve started college at Towson University in ’76. While majoring in psychology, he worked at the University’s daycare center. Steve was a kid at heart and loved his time at the daycare center. He would come up with creative fundraising events for the daycare, including building a skateboard ramp in a parking lot on campus. With disregard for their safety, he and his friends/coworkers launched themselves off that ramp to raise money for the daycare. When not attending class, working at the daycare, or getting into trouble, Steve would go backpacking and camping with his friends every chance he got no matter the weather or season. He was a camping pro, using skills he learned while a member of the Boy Scouts of America, and things he picked up through trial and error. He loved golf, and would engage in ‘good-natured’ cheating, carrying around an extra ball in his pocket to surreptitiously drop if his ball was lost or in a tough spot. My dad was also an avid Orioles and Ravens fan and especially loved going to O’s games. He was a loyal hometown sports fan, but also loved to root for underdogs.
During his studies at Towson U, he started working full-time for the state of Maryland at Rosewood Center in Owings Mills, MD, to pay for his education. Rosewood, a now closed state-run institution for individuals with developmental disabilities, was where he began his 38 year-long career with the State of Maryland. He began as an entry level caregiver and eventually worked his way up to supervising workshops and supportive employment programs for the residents. Steve also met my mom, his future wife, Loretta M Olienyk, at Rosewood.
He fell for Loretta quickly, but it took almost a year of convincing before she went out with him. She was a rule follower and did not think it proper to date a coworker, but in classic fashion, Steve said “rules-schmules” and managed to charm her into marrying him three years later. The only wrinkle was that she had a cat, Chaz, whom she loved dearly and brought with her when she moved from Iowa to Maryland. Steve was severely allergic to cats but because he loved Loretta, he took it upon himself to enroll in an experimental allergy treatment trial at Johns Hopkins University, which included allergy shots and exposure therapy. The exposure therapy was rough – picture a room with tons of cat hair being blown around with fans as you sit there patiently for 30 minutes to an hour. He never quite got over his allergy but lived with and loved cats for the remainder of his life.
Working full-time at Rosewood slowed his college progress to a crawl but he stayed the course and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology in ’92, 15 years after starting at Towson. My dad was proud of graduating from college and constantly joked about how long it took him to get that degree. I was born later that same year and my dad named me Eric, after Eric Clapton. He was incredibly proud and happy to be a father. While attending Towson and working at Rosewood, Steve lived in and around the Baltimore/Towson area, but soon after my parents got married, they bought their first house in the northeast Baltimore city neighborhood of Hamilton. We eventually moved to Towson in 2007, just before I started high school.
My dad loved being a father and thought of me as his best friend. Being a kid at heart, he always delighted in playing with me for hours. We would play everything from catch, tackle football, soccer, baseball, to Legos, GI Joes, card games, and Transformers. He loved to buy me toys, becoming one of Toys R Us’ most valued customers in the late ‘90s, but would also build toys too, including several two-foot long wooden battle ships and a functional wooden replica of a landing craft used by the US in D-day. Steve loved sports and got me into baseball and soccer at a young age. He went to every game and even took over as the soccer coach for a season in the Mount Washington Rec Soccer league when the original coach quit. Steve also enjoyed taking me to O’s games and Baltimore Blast games, to the museums in DC, especially the aerospace and natural history museums, and up to the Aberdeen proving grounds to see old army tanks and other vehicles. When I was young, my dad’s brother, Matt, came to visit and we all went to an Os game together. After the game, the adults could not remember which level of the parking garage the car was on and after wandering around for some time I remember saying “I think it’s a floor above us” and Uncle Matt going “no, I think it’s below us”. We went down naturally, and when we did not find the car, we went back up to the floor I suggested. We found the car there and Uncle Matt goes “let this be a lesson to you” and everyone laughed. For years after that my dad and I would use that line as an inside joke.
When we moved to Towson, my dad had a dream of getting his own pool table for the basement and one day while driving me to school, he said he’s going to stop “pussyfooting” around and get the table. The pool table arrived a couple weeks later and he and I would spend hours playing together. He was good, and he taught me a lot about the game, and we almost always traded games. Whenever I came home from college, we would play a best of three series most nights while listening to music, either his picks or mine. I will never forget Uncle Matt and his wife, Margy, came to visit and the five of us played pool together, men vs. women. The men were winning, and Matt had a shot on the 8-ball to win the game. He lined up the shot chanting “men, men, men, men” and proceeded to miss the shot and scratch, losing the game for the men. My dad loved that story and every chance he had to play pool with anyone and everyone who came to the house.
My dad’s parents eventually retired to St. Michaels on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and he loved to visit them. He would help around the house and in the yard and would relax playing golf and games of horseshoes with his brothers. Steve frequently brought my mom and I to visit his parents and loved playing whiffle ball with me and his nieces and nephews. My dad’s father Charley died on March 19, 2003, the day after his 80th birthday, from cancer-related complications. My grandmother, Regina, my dad, and my dad’s siblings were crushed by Charley’s passing. Charley was buried in Arlington National Cemetery and my dad would bring us to visit the grave at least once a year, usually on Memorial Day. Regina passed away a few years later at the age of 79 on May 24, 2007 and was buried with Charley in Arlington. To compound the grief the siblings felt after losing their parents, my dad’s sister, Ellen, died December 24, 2009 after battling a brain tumor for over 15 years, leaving behind a daughter, Lauren, and a son, Morgan. Losing their parents and sister in a relatively short period of time hit my dad and his brothers hard and each struggled with it in their own way.
In 2009, Rosewood Center was permanently closed by the State of Maryland and had been deteriorating for some time. Steve got a new position with the Maryland State Department of Health at the Office of Health Care Quality (OHCQ) where he continued to care for the developmentally disabled. He inspected group homes to ensure that the residents were safe and well cared for. He frequently saw former Rosewood residents, who he fondly referred to as “his guys”, that were moved into government subsidized, privately run group homes in the community when Rosewood closed. He continued serving the developmentally disabled community with OHCQ until the day he died.
He was a kind, loving husband, and father, with a big heart and a caring nature. Steve was easy to be around and enjoyed life. He encouraged my mom to laugh and always gave her something to laugh about. Steve would improve upon the English language by making up words, which partly explains why he liked President George W. Bush. My mom always laughed at his new words. He loved me unconditionally, supported me in everything, and his pride regarding my academic journey gives me the strength to keep going. When I graduate from my biomedical graduate program with a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree from the University of Pennsylvania, I will dedicate my thesis to him, my first and best friend and my biggest supporter. He is survived by his wife Loretta, me, his four brothers, Matt, Phil, Paul, and Chris, and five nieces and nephews, Morgan, Lauren, Wailana, Sam, and Thomas.
Remembering Steve Waite 