Claude Steen Jr.

Claude E. Steen, Jr., M.D.

Candler - Claude E. Steen, Jr., M.D. of Candler, NC, died July 23, 2015 at the age of 95. He was a family medicine practitioner in West Asheville from 1959 till his retirement in 1991. Dr. Steen was also a deeply committed member of the Seventh-day Adventist church, having served as a medical missionary in Ethiopia for 12 years, and elder of the Mount Pisgah Academy Adventist church for about 50 years and a member of the Carolina Conference of Seventh-day Adventist Executive Committee for a decade or more.

Born February 7, 1920 in Long Beach, California, Steen was the second child and only son of Dr. Claude E. Steen Senior and Willa Simons Steen. When Claude Junior was very young the family moved to Orange County, living first in Brea and then in Fullerton, California, where Claude Senior conducted a medical and surgical practice with his brother, Dr. E. J. Steen.

All of Claude Junior's education was in Seventh-day Adventist schools in Southern California - his college education at what is now La Sierra University and his medical education at Loma Linda University School of Medicine, then known as the College of Medical Evangelists, where his father uncle had also become doctors. During those higher education years Claude Junior was also very active in religious activities and in music; playing his cello in string ensembles; performing vocal and instrumental duets with his sister, Barbara, who was a violinist, vocalist and keyboard artist; and singing in various choral groups.

Three days before becoming a medical doctor Steen married Elizabeth Fuller of San Diego on March 25, 1943, then served two years as a US Army doctor during World War II. When the war was over the young couple was asked by the Adventist Mission Board to go to Gimbie in Western Ethiopia to establish a hospital at the mission station where Herman and Sue Davis, whom they had met in Hattiesburg, MS during army service, were running a school and doing evangelistic work.

Claude and Elizabeth were 27 when they arrived in Gimbie with two sons, just one and two years old. It was May of 1947 and it had taken them three months to make the trip from California: by train across the US, by freight ship across the Atlantic, through the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, by airplane to Addis Ababa, and finally by truck to Gimbie over almost impassible roads. In spite of mind-boggling difficulties the young doctor repaired buildings left from the Italian occupation of Ethiopia, designed and built water, sewage and electrical systems, set up basic lab, x-ray, operating room, clinic and inpatient wards and trained staff, all with the help of a single Swedish LPN and an Italian construction worker. The result was the only hospital within a radius of nearly 100 miles that has served uninterrupted to this day.

After serving five years in Gimbie the young family, now with three sons, moved to Addis Ababa where Dr. Steen was medical director of the Adventist hospital in the capital. The clientele there included some of Emperor Haile Selassie's royal family, the employees of Ethiopian Airlines and the poor and not-so-poor of the city. During his service in Addis Dr. Steen was invited by the International College of Surgeons to be inducted into their membership in recognition of his accomplishments as a surgeon. In 1959, the family, now with four growing sons, left Ethiopia to settle in Candler, near Mount Pisgah Academy where the four boys could benefit from Christian education.

Here Dr. Steen joined doctors Louis Waller, Bud Summerville and Les Smart in family practice in West Asheville. One of the highlights of those years was the construction of a medical office building for the four physicians and the building of a home for the Mount Pisgah Academy Church. In addition to his other church and community responsibilities Dr. Steen served as chairman of the church building committee and later played a major role in the purchase and installation of the pipe organ in the church.

Dr. Claude Steen will be remembered for his strong commitment to the Seventh-day Adventist church, his personal interest and care for each of his many patients, his strong Christian leadership in his family and his unshakable confidence in the soon return of Jesus Christ to take his faithful followers to the home He has prepared for them in heaven.

Dr. Steen was preceded in death by his parents, Claude Senior and Willa Steen; his sister, Barbara Steen Artress; and his beloved wife, Elizabeth Fuller Steen who passed to her rest a year ago. He is survived by his four sons, Claude III (Donna) Steen of Timberlake, NC; David (Lynn) Steen of Silver Point, TN; James (Sandy) Steen of Boston, MA; and Philip (Phyllis) Steen of Marshall, NC. Then there are the many descendants, including 13 grandchildren, 19 great-grandchildren and one great-great-granddaughter.

A memorial service for both Claude and Elizabeth Steen is scheduled for 11:30 AM, Sunday, August 30, 2015 at the Mount Pisgah Academy Church. In lieu of flowers please consider a donation in his honor to SHAREHIM (sharehim.org or PO Box 43234, Charlotte, NC).