Curtis Richard Roys

Curtis Richard Roys was born November 21, 1956; the day before Thanksgiving. I was almost 5 years old and I was very excited about my new baby brother. Curtis was a middle child. Harold Dennis born first, me, and then Curtis Richard and Charles Harvey. Our mom used to say he was the cutest baby out of the 4 of us. Curtis inherited his eyes from Mom, which crinkled up when he smiled.

Our father was a Southern Baptist pastor so we all grew up in a home that’s been titled by a book I read “Growing up Born Again.” It explains all of the things that made our family very special and unique from the worldly families we went to school with. Curtis became a Christian as a young boy. We all had to go to Church every Sunday morning and evening. Our Dad would lead us in family devotions and for years we attended family camp at Mt. Baker Baptist Assembly. There was no smoking, drinking, swearing and only going to the proms once a year. We had fun though snow skiing in the winter and water skiing behind our brother Charlie’s boat. Curtis sought the Lord’s will for his life and was brilliant at simple math. Our Mom wanted him to become an accountant, but he wanted something where he could be his own boss.

Curtis was a quiet, sensitive child. My girl friend, Carol and his Sunday school teacher Mrs. Wall remember Curtis as very sweet. He liked to draw and paint. He always got H’s or A’s in Art. Curtis was a good boy and seldom needed to be disciplined. He always fit into our family activities. He had a good sense of humor and didn’t mind being teased.

Curtis graduated from Shorecrest High school in 1975. He then attended Hyles Jackson Bible School in Indiana. Curtis was a bit shy at this point in his life he was not ready to get married. When the professor said it was important to find a suitable marriage partner for life’s work as a pastor or missionary this scared Curtis so he transferred to Gonzaga University which he attended a year and a half before moving home and graduating from the University of W. Curtis liked living at home with our parents. It wasn’t until they moved and sold the house that he moved out. He was still very close to our mother and visited her every weekend.

After college he worked as a security guard before he started work at United Parcel Service. A typical work day was 5 hours and any hours after that he would get paid time and a half and overtime on weekends. He worked by himself loading trucks.

We took several family vacations, but I think the one that impacted him the most was the one we spent on cousin Leonard’s farm. Leonard had a tractor Curtis like to climb up on and pretend driving it. Once he fell off and cut his head on some barb wire. He didn’t seem to mind and enjoyed the attention.

Shortly before he died Curt told me he had always imagined himself as a gentleman farmer. In the United States a gentleman farmer is a landowner who has a farm as part of his estate and who farms mainly for pleasure and employs laborers to work the farm. This is not his only source of income.

Curt’s other source of income was working for UPS for over 30 years. He retired at 59 years of age.

Curt speculated on different acreage his whole life. He owned property from Mt. Baker Wa. to Santa Cruz Cal. Probably the acreage he owned the longest time was in Moses Lake. On the sale of this property he invested in property in Burien, Wa. and Hawaii. His final piece of property was in Bronson Florida where he lived about 2 years.

This was the only property he owned that he lived on, because it had a trailer. Because Curt had always been naïve and believed in people and that their word was true. He bought the property sight unseen. The Florida property needed a lot of work which Curt was unable to do himself and had no support system to guide him. This was a big disappointment to him.

He lived in Florida enjoying the days of sunshine, heat and humidity for a year and a half with one trip back to Seattle to pick up his possessions from his storage locker. He spent a couple of weeks with us and because the trip was in January we went with him through the mountain passes to California.

Dr’s reports tell us Curt had a history of mini strokes, diabetes, Bipolar disorder, kidney desease, which explained some of his confusion with the last two years.

Curt never liked criticism, constructive or otherwise. He liked living alone and doing his own thing. One of my best memories of Curtis was at the time of his retirement he went to live in a clean and sober house. The pastor of the house told us to go home and throw away all of his alcohol and drugs. He did this with courage and determination. The pastor also insisted on Sunday service attendance Sunday night and Wednesday prayer meetings. He also led the men in daily devotions. This routine was in line with how we were all raised in a born again home. Even after Curt moved from this home he spent a lot of time reading his Bible daily.

I am going to read a passage from Romans 12 which he had underlined in his King James Bible. This was the motto I believed Curt lived by.