Obituary: Steffy, Susannah Kirkham
Susannah was born July 19, 1935 to Barbara Bauer Kirkham and Dr. Virgil Kirkham, PhD.
in Detroit, MI.
Her mother’s family, the Bauers, were pioneers to eastern Washington, members of the original wagon train of seventeen Volga German families who emigrated from Russia to settle Ritzville in 1883.
Her father’s family dates back to before the Revolutionary War.
He was a gifted geologist and professor at the University of Idaho, who discovered and opened the Michigan oil fields in the 1930s.
Susannah was raised in Saginaw with her older sister and brother, in a home that is now the Saginaw Art Museum.
When she was twelve, the family relocated to Spokane’s historic Browne’s Addition.
She graduated from Lewis and Clark High School in 1953, where her interests in theater, dance and music grew.
As Suzy Kirkham, she became known in Spokane as a multi-talented singer, dancer and actress.
She performed in many productions with the Spokane Symphonic Chorale, the Dasidrian Talent Club, the Jane Larkin Concert Ballet, and in many lead roles for the Spokane Opera Association and the Spokane Civic Theater, in shows like “Kiss Me Kate,” “Annie Get Your Gun,” “The Curious Savage,” “You Can’t Take It With you,” and “Sabrina Fair.”
She also performed musical reviews for clubs around town and in the Starlight Room at the Ridpath Hotel.
She was proud to have performed on KXLY Spokane’s first live television show, broadcast from the Spokane Hotel in 1951.
At 21, she realized her dream to go to New York, where in 1956 she attend the prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater, with a full scholarship sponsored by alumnus Gregory Peck.
For the intensive two-year program, she studied method acting with Sanford Meisner, modern dance with Martha Graham, mime with Marcel Marceau, and other luminaries.
She helped support herself by modeling and doing spots for TV and radio.
She joined a summer stock resident company for two years at the Timberland Resort in the Adirondacks.
She had an amazing voice and musical comedy was her passion.
In New York in 1958, she married artist Willard Bond, a painter, musician and actor, also originally from the Pacific Northwest, and in 1959, they welcomed a daughter.
They lived the bohemian life for eight years, in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in an artist’s loft.
Their enormous loft space was a former synagogue with stained glass windows, a skylight and a 30-foot ceiling.
The giant swing they installed was known throughout the artist community.
During these years, while she also supported her husband’s painting career, she was a founding member of the Prince Street Players, an innovative children’s theater company that created original musical comedy versions of classic fairy tales, touring around the East Coast and appearing on WCBS-TV in New York.
Reflecting those tumultuous years in the culture, the marriage ended in 1966, and she and her daughter moved to Seattle.
Susannah married her soul mate in 1967, Stephen Steffy, a teacher, poet, intellect, deep sea diver, and adventurer.
She acted at Seattle’s Cirque Theater, memorably as the lead in “Wait Until Dark.”
She and Stephen participated in the counter-culture movement during the late 60s and 70s, befriending artists and musicians.
She also studied at University of Washington, and always ahead of her time, intended to pursue a degree in interspecies communication, particularly with dolphins.
They had a wonderful year in Kona, Hawaii in 1969, where he was editor of the newspaper and she took tourists out in a glass bottomed boat, where she dove with and fed tropical fish.
They returned to Seattle, and in 1973, her second daughter was born.
The family moved in 1974, to American Samoa for a year, where Stephen taught college.
The family enjoyed the tropical lifestyle and beautiful culture of the South Pacific islands.
Stephen later earned his Masters Degree from University of Washington in 1977, and with Susannah’s participation, established gifted and creative programs for elementary and middle school students in Seattle, Central California and several small communities outside of Spokane.
When in 1986, he died unexpectedly of a brain tumor, Susannah returned to Spokane to reinvent her life.
A great supporter of classical music and the arts, during this next chapter she volunteered countless hours for Connoisseur Concerts, the Spokane Symphony and, following in her mother’s footsteps, who started the Spokane Symphony Women’s Association in her living room in 1962, Susannah was co-founder of the Ferden Chapter of the Spokane Symphony Associates.
Among other symphony volunteer activities, she loved helping host Christmas Tree Elegance.
She also served on the Browne’s Addition Steering Committee to restore the gazebo in Coeur d’Alene Park, and was active in Friends of the Davenport, the Historic Cannon’s Addition Neighborhood Community Development Committee and Spokane Preservation Advocates.
In 1989, she purchased a foursquare Craftsman home on Spokane’s South Hill, which had been converted into an apartment house.
Her career as property owner and landlady continued for the next 25 years.
She made a point of improving the neighborhood, and had several celebrations on her expansive lawn, including the home’s 100th year anniversary.
Throughout her life she was an explorer, striving to improve and express herself through the study of acting techniques, singing, dance, dream work, herbal and energy healing, meditation, and Zen and Tibetan Buddhism.
She had an encyclopedic knowledge of films of all genres, particularly musical comedy, which was her passion.
An avid reader of texts from poetry and science to psychology and world affairs, she had a great curiosity and imagination.
She enjoyed beauty in all forms, and always created a colorful, engaging living space wherever she was.
A free spirit, she was known by her friends and family for her sense of humor, “Always leave ‘em laughing!”
In 2013, she moved to the Napa Valley, to be close to her eldest daughter and family.
In December 2014, she moved to a private, full time care home, then transitioned to Hospice care during her last five months, after four years of treatment for multiple myeloma, a form of bone marrow cancer.
Susannah was pre-deceased by her parents; her sister Katherine McWaid; her brother Cameron Kirkham; her two husbands, Stephen Steffy, and her former, Willard Bond.
She is survived by daughter Seraphima Steffy-Kirkham of Spokane; daughter Gretchen Bond de Limur, son-in-law Charles, beloved grandchildren Alexandra (Sasha) and AndrĂŠde Limur, of Calistoga, CA; and nephews Robert McWaid and family of Rainier, WA, and Ross McWaid and family of Olympia, WA.
Private services will be held at St. Helena Cemetery, 2461 Spring Street, St. Helena, CA 94574, on Friday, June 19, where her ashes will be laid to rest next to those of her beloved husband, Stephen Steffy.
After a full life of rich and varied experiences, her wisdom, beauty, strength, humor, creativity and kindness will be missed.