Timothy T. Curtis ’64 died on May 18, 2023, in Colchester, Connecticut.
(The following was provided by the Hartford Courant on June 9, 2023)
Timothy Towle Curtis ’64
Timothy Towle Curtis died at home in Colchester, CT, on May 18, 2023, a few months after he was diagnosed with an untreatable form of pancreatic cancer. At home in Hospice Care, his final two months were greatly enriched by a steady stream of calls and visits from family and longtime friends and he endured his terminal condition with stoic grace.
Tim was born in Waterville, ME, on June 2, 1942, to Marjorie (Towle) and Paul Revere Curtis, Jr. A direct descendant of Paul Revere, the Revolutionary War patriot, he was a member of the Sons of the American Revolution when he was an infant. Tim’s family moved to Farmington, CT, where as a boy he attended public schools. In the fall of 1955 he was admitted to the Kingswood School in West Hartford, where he later graduated as a member of the Class of 1960. Many of his friendships forged during these years proved to be enduring. Tim attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, ME, for two years and then transferred to the University of Hartford where he graduated in 1965 with a B.A. in psychology.
During the Vietnam War, Tim enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, attended the Officer Candidate School at Quantico, VA where he earned his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in 1966 and completed USMC Basic Training in 1967, next he went to Camp Pendleton in California for tank training. Deployed to Vietnam and on his first mission as a tank commander, he and his men were ambushed by enemy forces and his left eye was hit by shrapnel. This injury necessitated his medical evacuation from the war zone and then a return to the U.S. for surgery to replace his blinded eye with a prosthetic one. Tim was awarded a Purple Heart medal and was honorably discharged from the service with a medical retirement in November of 1967.
Tim married Suzanne Olsson in 1968 in Farmington, CT, and they moved to Glastonbury, CT. They had two daughters, Elizabeth (“Liza”) born in 1970 and Jane born in 1977. Their marriage was ended by divorce in 1989 and Suzanne died in 1998. While living in Glastonbury, Tim embarked upon his long career in the insurance industry in Connecticut, including many years as a sales rep of the CNA Insurance Company based in its Farmington, CT, field office. In 1998 he bought CEA Associates, an independent life health and financial services insurance agency in East Hampton, CT.
Tim met Leslie Setterholm Fox and they eventually moved together to Colchester, CT, in the summer of 1998 and married in November 2000. Tim joined the East Haddam Lions club and for twenty-two years he unstintingly lent his best efforts to insure success of the organization’s civically philanthropic service projects.
A life-long athlete and physical fitness buff, Tim was a runner who also enjoyed skiing, sailing, tennis, golf, mountain-climbing, bicycling and kayaking. He ran several marathons and competed in almost every 5.5-mile Salmon River Road Race sponsored by the Colchester Land Trust. In 2022 he was the only octogenarian in that race, remarkably finishing ahead of twenty percent of the pack. After he sold his business in 2009, he joined a league of fellow golfing enthusiasts who met once a week, weather permitting, at various courses in central Connecticut. He played a competitive game of tennis despite his lack of depth perception. He climbed Mt. Katahdin in Maine once and Mt. Washington in New Hampshire twice.
Tim was blessed with such an amiable personality that he readily made friends and tended to keep them for life. Always a gentleman, he was hard-working and dependable, thoughtful and wise, cheerful and generous, and unfailingly modest about his abilities and accomplishments. Tim lived his life energetically and admirably for the almost eighty-one years that were allotted to him, setting an excellent and honorable example for everyone who knew and loved him.
Tim leaves behind his wife, Leslie Setterholm Curtis of Colchester, CT; his daughters Elizabeth Begin and her husband Andrew of East Hampton, CT, and Jane Curtis and her wife Nicole Golden of Watertown, MA, and all their children and grand-children; his step-children Ashley Fox Grant and her husband, Ronald, of Saddle River, NJ, and their children, and Christopher Scott Fox and his fiancée, Melissa Stedman, of Lyme, CT. He also leaves his older sister, Susan Emery of Little Compton, RI, and her children and also leaves his older sister, Susan Emery of Little Compton, RI, and her children and grandchildren.