Sunday Obituary: Nellie May Curtis remembered as gentle, but tough when necessary
Sunday, December 28, 2008 12:16 AM PST
By Amy M.E. Fischer
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E-mail this articleLongview resident Nellie May Curtis, an ordained minister for the Church of God, is remembered as a patient, compassionate woman who looked for the peaceful way out of a fight.
But if someone messed with one of her kids, “she’d go to the mat in a heartbeat,” said her son.
Dave Curtis, 51, recalls the time an older boy chased him home when he was 12 or 13.
“Mom insisted that I stand up to him and not back down,” said Curtis, a Portland resident. “So we went to blows, and when the kid finally got me on the ground, mom tackled him, rolled over on the grass and sat on him. ... Mom told me when you’re right, and especially when you’re standing in your yard, you don’t back down. ... When we weren’t given a choice, the Greek fire came out of her.”
After years of health problems, including multiple sclerosis, Nellie Curtis died Dec. 13 in Longview. She was 71.
She was born July 1, 1937, to William and Sylvia (Webb) Spiros in Great Falls, Mont. Her father was a Greek immigrant who worked for the U.S. Marshall’s Office escorting prisoners to penitentiaries such as Alcatraz. Because of his job, the Spiros family lived in different towns across the United States while Nellie was growing up.
In 1955, Nellie graduated from high school in Fort Benton, Mont., and married Carl Curtis the same year. Two years later, she began having children, giving birth to seven babies in eight-and-a-half years.
Although Carl Curtis was a butcher at a custom meat market, “we were the poorest family in town,” Dave Curtis said.
The family had a garden the size of a city lot and raised rabbits for their meat and pelts.
“We grew or hunted pretty much everything we ate,” said Dave Curtis, who learned to cook Greek dishes from his mother at an early age.
Between canning all summer and caring for seven children without the conveniences of disposable diapers or a dishwasher, his mother managed to find time to teach Sunday School, hold “good news clubs” after school at their house and sing in church. Nellie Curtis also played several musical instruments, including violin, trumpet, piano, organ, guitar and harpsichord.
With no money and two channels on TV, the family would gather around the piano and learn to sing in harmony for entertainment.
Having multiple children so close together took a toll on her health, and Nellie Curtis suffered from a variety of medical problems, some of which required surgery. The children would be farmed out to friends and neighbors while their mom was in the hospital.
“I don’t remember ever hearing her complain,” Dave Curtis said.
The family moved to Longview in 1969 to be closer to Carl Curtis’ parents, who lived in Kelso. Carl Curtis managed Sherrick’s butcher shop on Ocean Beach Highway for a few years before taking a job firing the boilers at the Weyerhaeuser Co. pulp mill.
In those days, Nellie and Carl enjoyed taking all seven kids fishing at Abernathy and Mill creeks.
“They’d line us up on the bank and take turns baiting hooks and getting lines uncaught,” Dave Curtis said, who remembers his mother standing waist-deep in Abernathy’s cold current. “She’d do anything to go fishing.”
In Longview, Nellie Curtis began attending New Life Church of God, and then Valley View. In 1989, she became an ordained minister with the Church of God, which led to her doing volunteer chaplain work at St. John Medical Center and at the Cowlitz County Jail.
“She just looked for places to serve,” Dave Curtis said.
Nellie Curtis’ good listening skills drew people to her, and many younger Longview folks called her “mom,” he said. She had the ability “to sit there and smile and listen and make you realize somebody cared,” her son said.
“She made tons of friends everywhere she went,” he said.
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