Hiram Steen Brown

Hiram Steen Brown

Long-time civic leader Steen Brown died Monday, January 10, 2005 after a short acute illness. He was born January 29, 1918, in Hye, Texas, the oldest son of John Steen and Ida Wells Brown, and was married to the former Lillian Baggett of Ozona on June 30, 1940.

Memorial service will be held at Cook-Walden Funeral Home at 6100 N. Lamar Boulevard on Saturday, January 15, 2005 at 11:00 a.m., Reverend Bill Harris officiating. Visitation precedes the service at 9:30 a.m. Private interment will follow in the cemetery at Hye, Texas.

President of Cabaniss Brown Furniture Company, located for many years at 5th and Brazos, which he operated in conjunction with his father and his brother, Bart, he also served as president of the Texas Retail Furniture Association and a director of the Southwest Retail Furniture Association and the National Retail Furniture Association. The National Retail Furniture Market was brought to Texas due to his collaboration with Trammell Crow.

Brown was president of the Downtown Merchants’ Association and a member of the Board of Directors of Mutual Savings Institution of Austin. He was instrumental in pioneering profit sharing plans with employees and helping other businessmen implement similar plans, as well as being among the first to utilize live television advertising and to incorporate the use of computers into his business. Through his organizations and interests, he was an advisor and colleague of many political figures.

Mr. Brown was among the organizers of the Austin Goodwill Industries and served as an early president and as a board member for The Salvation Army. A Paul Harris Fellow, his membership in Austin Downtown Rotary Club spanned more than fifty years after his selection in 1947 as the organization’s youngest member. One of the earliest employers of physically or mentally handicapped workers, he also employed and mentored troubled teenagers who were under his guidance while on parole, and was troopmaster of Boy Scout Troop 399. During the 1950’s, he served on Austin’s Planning Commission and Electrical Commission. Following his retirement from the furniture business in 1975, Mr. Brown was a small business consultant and chairman of the Board of Directors of Taylor Bedding. After the Brown family moved to Austin from Hye in 1923, he attended Pease Elementary and Allen Junior High schools, graduating from Austin High School in 1934. As a young man, he was active in DeMolay and was a 32nd degree Mason. In 1938, he received a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Texas and completed many requirements for the master of business degree. Collegiate membership in Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity was followed by long involvement as an alum advisor.

After college, Brown was employed by the City of Austin, Electrical Department; by Texas Electric in Ft. Worth; and in Houston at the Austin Company, an engineering firm. First employed by the U.S. Navy as a civilian engineer in New Orleans, he received his commissions as Ensign, USN, following Naval Training School at Cornell University. One of the first radar specialists, he completed Radar School at Harvard and MIT, and saw combat duty at Guam before serving on the staff of Admiral Chester Nimitz for the duration of WW II. He was awarded the bronze star and achieved the rank of Lieutenant before his discharge. Among his many interests could be counted the ‘Friends of Alec’, supporters of the College of Engineering at The University of Texas. He was an ardent philatelist. An early activist in what came to be known as xeriscaping, he had special expertise in growing the flowering trees of Texas. Many of these native plants flourished in the garden surrounding his West Austin home and around his weekend retreat, The Mulebarn, two of four homes he designed and built. At his beloved Rockpile, the ranch on the Rio Grande, he combined his interests in geology, rock polishing, and natural biology.

Even after losing his vision and developing severe health problems, he commuted daily by bus to his downtown offices to pursue consulting and documenting family genealogy, an interest sparked by his grandmother, Margaret Ann Steen, who loved to tell stories of the family’s arrival before Texas Independence.

Mr. Brown is survived by Lillian, his wife of 64 years; daughter, Susan Brown Swint and husband, Richard of Paris, Texas; sons, Hiram Monroe Brown and wife, Molly of Lockhart, Texas and Steen James Brown and wife, Maureen of Orlando, Florida; grandchildren, Liskin Swint Kruse, Erin Swint Edwards, Lorin Swint Matthews, Reuel Bennett Swint, Galen Steen Swint, Ethan Baggett Swint, Nancy Brown List, Hiram Charles Brown, Curtis Steen Brown, Emily Brown, Aileen and Johanna Makinen. In addition, he is survived by a brother, Bart Brown and wife, Patti and by a sister, Katharine Taylor and husband, Boyd. He was preceded in death by his brother, Clayton and sisters, Dorothy Carson and husband, G.W. and Rebecca Case and husband, Ed. He relished being Sonny Boy to great-grandchildren, Ben, Sam, and Laura Ann List, Kiel and Meredith Kruse, and Aidan, Aili, and Ella Edwards and looked forward to the arrival of the Matthews twins this week.

In lieu of flowers, the family would be pleased by memorials to the scholarship fund of the College of Engineering at the University of Texas, Rotary Children’s Home, the Salvation Army, or the charity of your choice.