Richard Harvey Curtis

Richard Harvey Curtis
23 April 1931 – 31 December 2025
Richard Harvey Curtis was born on 23 April 1931 in Balaklava, South Australia, weighing barely four pounds and arriving into the world against medical advice. His mother had been warned not to try again after loss. She did anyway. That decision gave the world a man who would spend the next ninety-four years proving that persistence, curiosity, and decency matter. Richard was never afraid to speak up when necessary. He knew that part of life and his job included speaking up and standing by what is right in order to be successful. And to sleep at night.
He died at home on New Year's Eve, 2025, in hospice care, with his family beside him. It was a good death - calm, loving, unforced. He left the world as he lived in it: his own special way, without pretence, surrounded by those he loved.
Richard grew up on a farm at Watchman Plains near Balaklava, in a four-room stone house with no running water, an outside pit toilet, horses instead of tractors, and parents who believed in work before dinner and education before comfort. His father fed the horses before feeding himself. That lesson stuck. So did the one about saving ten percent for a rainy day.
From early childhood, Richard was curious - relentlessly so. He questioned his mother from beneath the kitchen table on hot days, pondering numbers, space, and infinity. He could count to a thousand before he went to school and still wondered where counting ended. That question never really left him.
Life was not easy. The farm failed during the Depression. The family was dispossessed. They moved to town. There were losses, adaptations, improvisations. And yet, there was also abundance: fresh food, shared work, learning, humour, and love. Richard learned early that things can be hard and good at the same time - a duality he accepted without bitterness. He was raised with deep faith and a belief that regardless of where you were from, you mattered. He believed in one Race, The Human Race.
He excelled at school, topping his classes, earning scholarships, and eventually studying chemical engineering and metallurgy at the South Australian School of Mines and at the University of Adelaide/St Mark's College. He worked relentlessly, played many sports enthusiastically, and supported himself wherever possible. He believed deeply in earned knowledge and honest effort.
In 1953, he left Australia aboard the SS Mooltan, bound for England, beginning a life that would span continents. Travel, work, learning, and adaptation became constant. Yet he never lost the grounded sensibility of a farm boy from South Australia who knew how to fix things, think clearly, and keep going.
Richard married Eleanor, whom he loved from the moment they met and deeply for the next 72 years. They were the epitome of those two little words, "I do". Together they built a family that now stretches across the world - Australia, Portugal, the UK, the United States - across hemispheres and time zones yet remains close-knit. That closeness is no accident. It is inherited.
He was son to John and Winnie; father to Robert and Helen; grandfather to John and Austen; brother to Faith, Joyce, Edie, Ron, Colin, Lou, Harley; uncle to 4 generations; and a good mate to many. He was best man at his son's wedding, but more than that, he was always a good man - present, honest, and dependable. His son says he does not recall him ever lying. That may be the simplest and highest praise possible.
Richard loved learning, precision, humour, and telling a good story - especially one that included a lesson, a sideways joke, or a quiet observation about human nature. He believed life should be examined, not exaggerated. He did not need to shine; he simply did. He was honored when he was awarded the Title of Eur. Ing. He also believed in the occasional wee nip of a 12-14 year old single malt whisky.
Nothing was perfect. Everything mattered. That was his philosophy, lived rather than spoken. As his family says now, as he once showed them:
Our life is good. Life is a funny thing. Then we die.
Richard Harvey Curtis was a good man who lived a good life.
He rests now in peace - carried forward in the questions we keep asking, the honesty we try to live by, and the families we hold together across distance and time.
A Celebration of Life is being planned for April 25 with more details to follow. In lieu of flowers, please donate to your favorite charity or pay it forward as your heart directs. Richard gave many a gift to help humans, other animals and our Earth.
Arrangements have been entrusted to Forest Meadows Funeral Home 725 NW 23rd Ave. Gainesville FL 32609...352-728-2526