In Honor of Stephen Rounds

Stephen “Steve” Rounds was born on October 7, 1928, in Exeter, New Hampshire.  He was a faculty child and was raised in the dormitories of Phillips Exeter Academy, from which he graduated Class of ’47.  He summered in Randolph, New Hampshire (which he would enjoy the rest of his life) and worked on farms where he discovered his passion for agriculture  He then attended Cornell’s School of Agricultural with the goal of ultimately becoming a farmer.  At Cornell, he joined the beta chapter of Theta Delta Chi, a fraternity of which his grandfather Stephen Rounds (Tufts 1898) and father, Ezra (Eta charge,Bowdoin ‘20) were brothers and inspiring his brother-in-law Achilles Filios (University of Illinois, Omicron deuteron) and daughter Poly (Eta, Bowdoin ‘79).

While at Cornell ‘51 he was a varsity athlete on the hockey and lacrosse teams and wrote and cartooned for the Cornell Widow.  He loved the glee club and singing.  Singing was also an active competition at Theta Delt where he and Sid Cox would “compete”.  Cornell songs were the few that he learned to play on the piano and he regaled young crew teams visiting Princeton with his old boom box and tapes teaching them the songs and traditions as late as 2016.

Upon graduation he traveled the world and he turned his eye to public service, inspired by his Quaker upbringing.  He rebuilt bombed out houses in Bavaria and then joined a group sponsored by the World Council of Churches with whom he could use his agricultural expertise.  He was assigned to a group working in remote northwestern Greece.  There he taught agriculture and basic rural healthy living to “his boys”.  He taught the young men of an area recently decimated by WWII and the Greek Civil War to not only farm efficiently but install window screens and latrines.

In the small village of Agios Kosmos where he lived in a house in the middle of the village he met Julia, the love of his life for nearly 65 years.  He encouraged her education and she was not only the first woman From the village to complete high school but also get a college degree.  The inevitable happened and he asked Julia – through an interpreter – to marry him.  They were married in a small church on an island off Corfu (Pontigonisi (see For Your Eyes Only – James Bond)).  The church was packed full with the happy couple, the priest and two witnesses.  

They returned to upstate New York where Steve took a few jobs in the agricultural field ultimately landing at Eastman Chemical Company where he would remain for over 45 years.  It was there that their three children, Poly, Steve and Mark were born.  His work with Eastman would lead him from Illinois, back to Rochester, to Tennessee and ultimately to Princeton, NJ where he would learn to “row” on an erg at the young age of 66.  That led him to be world champion for several years and travel internationally as a champ.

Everyone who knew Steve knew that he was one thing above all others: a gentleman.  As he won 23 consecutive world championships on the erg, that quality was always on display.  If the second place finisher rowed a personal best, he would announce it from the champion’s podium.  Every year he insisted that the second and third place winners join him on the champ’s top tier for the official winner’s photograph.

As Steve and Julia moved around the country for his work, there was one constant: Theta Delta Chi.  While in Rochester he would “chaperone “ the house parties with Julia and three young children.  There are pictures in the house including the children in 1965.  He was on the board of the house, composed and sent the Beta Bulletin, collected VG contributions and returned every year for meetings which happened to coincide with Homecoming and football games.  He was a decades long member of the CRC, Continuous Reunion Club. 

The family involvement with the house was personal with  Julia making things like curtains for the building, mothering the boys and always pronouncing the fraternity as “theeta thelta hee” as anyone who is conversant in Greek would do.  One Thanksgiving there was food but no cooks, so Julia, the family and some of the brothers cooked and served the meal

For years, Steve composed the Beta Bulletin and solicited dues to “keep the slate roof repaired”.  It seemed to be a thankless task until the checks came in and he would read them aloud to the family.  His son Steve feels as if he knows all the brothers personally from these readings.  Always the gentleman, he hand wrote a thank you letter to every donor.  He smiled a knowing smile when he told the family that this always led to getting news from the brothers for the Bulletin.

He was National Theta Delt of the Year in 1985.

His son Mark recalls that when he was a youngster of six or seven he and the family were at the Theta House on University Avenue.  As Mark was occupying himself searching for coins in the sofa cushions, a brother, Jim Martis, approached him.  Rather than reprimanding him and his siblings for playing pool or interrupting the meetings, Jim said to Mark: “I know your family doesn’t go to church often, but your father Steve is the best Christian I have ever met”.  Even at that young age, Mark could recognize the emotion in Jim’s face and voice.

Steve was one of the best conversationalists of all time.  He could enter a room in which he knew no one and converse for the entire evening, making every one with whom he spoke feel as if they had the most interesting life that could be.  He led by quiet example.  People would see him walk along the roads in America or Greece picking up rubbish as he went and suddenly they would find themselves to be accomplished trash collectors as well.

He is remembered fondly around the world.  He is known by every Theta Delt, recalled warmly in Randolph and in little Agios Kosmos they named the village’s library for him. in a gesture he would have truly appreciated, when news of his passing reached the village at 3 a.m., they rang the bells of the church to commemorate his passing as they do for every “citizen” of the town.