Warren Curtis Sterrett

Husband, brother, uncle, friend, Warren Sterrett was a man of broad experiences and varied talents. Born in the chaos of the devastating 1938 New England hurricane, Warren spent much of his adult life seeking to establish order in the world he inhabited. A native Long Islander, he grew up fascinated with cars and at sixteen, bought his first, a 1940 Chevrolet. He worked in his Sewanhaka High School co-op program as a part-time auto mechanic until he graduated in 1956.  

Warren joined the US Navy before he was eighteen and, after Intercommunications training at the Great Lakes, sailed from California on the USS Black with the Seventh Fleet to the Far East. A family birthday/Christmas gift of a camera began his fascination with photography, a hobby which he pursued avidly for the rest of his life. He kept to film, resisting the pull of the increasingly popular digital. Only when he couldn’t find film did he turn to digital, and then learned Adobe Photoshop so that he could tailor his photos the way he wanted and maintain his high photographic standards. 

Upon his discharge from the Navy in 1960, he joined General Electric where he rose to the position of Manager of Pricing in the GE Lighting Division. A GE transfer to Kansas City was providential. In an Excelsior Springs, Missouri, apartment building, he met upstairs neighbor Janet Wiles at the building’s mailbox, where he would eventually propose. Janet became his bride in June of 1965. 

After years of Cleveland apartment living and building a vacation home on the Outer Banks, NC, Warren and Janet built their dream house on a heavily wooded Willoughby Hills lot bordering the Chagrin River. Here Warren built his darkroom and studio, and, with Janet’s help, set about landscaping the property and taming their section of the river. From here, he and Janet left on vacations touring distant and exotic lands, with Warren photographing the sights and peoples of thirty-three countries on six of the seven continents. The hallway in their home displays his photographs and the rooms, mementos of their travels. Had Warren remained healthy, no doubt the North Pole would have been his next stop, with camera in hand.  

He is survived by his devoted wife and partner, Janet, sisters Grace and Cynthia, and a host of nieces and nephews. Also grieving are Janet’s sisters Mary Hamilton Beard and Joyce Carlson, and her brothers Jack and Carl Wiles. 

Sterrett travel destinations, in alphabetical order:

Alaska, Antarctica, Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Bhutan, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Germany, Greece, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, Laos, Mali, Mexico, Morocco, Myanmar, Peru, Papua / New Guinea, New Zealand, South Africa, Thailand, Tibet, Turkey and Vietnam

Words of Remembrance Service Wednesday, October 23, 2024 at 1 PM at THE DeJOHN FUNERAL HOME & CELEBRATIONS CENTER OF CHESTERLAND 12811 CHILLICOTHE ROAD (Rt. 306, just south of Mayfield Rd.) Visitation to pay tribute to and celebrate the life of Warren will immediately follow the service until 5 PM.