Stephen Ellis Assaf

1962 - 2023

Stephen Ellis Assaf (Stevie, Steve, Sheeb) 1962-2023 was a smiling boy animated by clever pranks and irresistible curiosities. He made lifetime friends at St. Dominic's, Brother Martin and U.N.O., playing guitar in his band and singing in the high school chorus. But Stephen's calling was outdoors – alone or with members of his (mostly) Lakeview pack. As a youth, his naturalist urges played out behind the levee at the 17th Street Canal or on trips to the spillway. His stories involved river rafts, fishing expeditions, muddy adventures, alligators, monkeys and snakes. He thrilled at the discovery of a rare wild hibiscus or the planting of a citrus tree. Like many New Orleanians, he excelled at the arts of music and food hospitality, whether serving, cooking or managing. Keeping mercurial energies in check, his outside social style was gentle but spirited, always ready with a joke or charming anecdote. Losing the use of one hand in his final year came as a particularly devastating blow to one so determined to craft and lift and collect. Stephen outlived many dear friends, sometimes present at their untimely passings. He still holds onto the hearts of those who mourned him in October at the Degas-Bancroft Home. Musical compadres Robert Wagner (from age 6) and Gary Hoffman (from teenage), who pursued careers in Europe, always sought Stephen's company as nothing less than brothers on their visits home. Stephen spent years forging a life in his maternal grandmother's homeland of Costa Rica, running his friend's restaurant/bar, teaching English, learning Spanish, and playing rock and roll. He fell in love with the land and its people, in particular Maria Teresa, who came into the marriage with a daughter Stephen felt was his own. He was drawn to the elements of the physical world but spent his last decades shielding himself from disappointment, confusion and suspicion, easily mistaking fact for fiction. Caught in the torrent of a tribe riven by willful misinterpretation, selective reality and decisive division, his stated wish was that the sale of the family home on Spencer Avenue be a healing act for his brothers and sisters, even if it meant never again to cohabit with his father Roberto in that storied space. Stephen visited his 'Pops' with his sister Roxane at five New Orleans-area nursing homes and remained a Lakeview homeowner until death. On the one-year anniversary of his father Robert's peaceful passing in Chicago on 9 July 2022, Stephen collapsed in the presence of his closest associates, never to regain consciousness, even after three attempts to revive him through pharmaceutical intervention. Stephen was preceded in death by the youngest Assaf, Jonathan (2013), his mother Evy (2014), his brother Robby (2020) and his father Robert (2022). He is survived by half-brother Bobby, brothers Ronny and Christopher, and sisters Roxane, Alessandra, Tiffany. [This official obituary follows a lively tribute published with factual errors and substantive omissions.] Donations in Stephen's honor can be made to the Jefferson Performing Arts Society (JPAS).