Arthur Wilson Courtney, III

Arthur Wilson Courtney III died peacefully in his sleep on January 28, 2013.  Art is survived by his two sisters, Elizabeth Courtney and Lynne Kammerer, his daughter, Salem Steppig, and their families.  A memorial service for him will be held on February 27, 2013 from 2pm to 5pm in the Aspen Room of the Inverness Hotel, Englewood CO.  
Arthur Wilson Courtney III was born on January 21, 1946, ten short months after his father, Arthur Wilson Courtney Jr., returned from the South Pacific Theater of WWII to marry his mother, Gertrude Hazen Griffith.  For the first eight years, Court - as the family called him - happily made himself at home prowling around the boulders in the back yard on Swan Avenue in South Weymouth, Massachusetts.  During this time his two sisters were born and he stepped into the role of the caring, protective older brother.  He always found time to explore the great woods and the pond that surrounded his childhood home, where the boulders gave way to rocks of various sizes and shapes many of which would come home in his pockets at the end of the day.  This was a clear harbinger of his love for the study of rocks.
In 1954 the family moved to Shenandoah Valley of Virginia to take up residence on a farm where Court had many responsibilities including taking care of the pigs, his favorite animal.  As transplants from the Boston area the accents of the family commanded a silent curiosity by their peers.  Many times Court stepped up to protect his sisters from the bullies on the playgrounds or rescue them from slimy duck ponds during night games of hide and seek.  He was a gentleman from the start.
The family traveled much over the years.  Court, a shy and sensitive young man didn’t take to the routine transplanting his father’s profession.  He entered Mercersburg Academy where he poured his heart into his studies. He earnestly pursued his father’s professional track—engineering—at Northeastern University but soon remembered that his true passion was for rocks. He transferred to Franklin and Marshal College to study Geology. After graduation he married his high school sweetheart, Donna Rook. Shedding the family nickname of his childhood, he began to use his grown-up nickname, Art.
Art’s love of nature lured him to the frontier. Hunting down rocks and other buried treasure interested him deeply, as did the constant adventure of living with bears, wolverines and other nefarious creatures that had him living on the edge. After six years of marriage, Art and Donna parted ways. Art then went on to earned his MBA from University of Iowa and soon moved to Denver to work for the Anaconda Mining Corporation. It was there that he met Susan Alexander, the woman who became his devoted wife, faithful friend and loving mother of their only child, Salem.
Over the years Art took his little family on many adventures of their own to Disneyland, Cape Cod,  The Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, London, and many other places.  At home Art was the devoted husband and father who helped build beautiful gardens in the backyard, adding to his green thumb tricks he learned from his childhood with Susan’s expertise.  He also was the guiding light for his daughter in school, helping with science projects and math problems, always the patient teacher.  In 2001, Susan and Art divorced and Art decided to try his hand at teaching full time at Prairie Middle School.  But he couldn’t stay away from those rocks for long and soon he found himself working again with previous colleagues at International Royalty Corporation (IRC) as Director of Research.  With IRC, he continued his passion for rocks, travel and teaching – taking many of the interns under his guiding wing.  During this time he also discovered a renewed love for photography and spent many hours with a camera in hand taking in the world around him.  After another adventure, this time to the Land Down Under, Art retired to spend his days with his camera and rocks making good use of this time to examine his collections, including extensive stamps and coins compilations.
In March 2012, Art was diagnosed with an astrocytoma — an inoperable, malignant, brain tumor. After six weeks of radiation followed by extended rehabilitation, Art lost his heroic battle with the tumor on January 28, 2013. Arthur Wilson Courtney III quietly passed from this life, as the full moon began to wane in a clear Denver sky.  
His far-flung family and friends visited him often during the past ten months and gathered together at Art’s bedside for the week leading up to his death. The family extends their heartfelt thanks to the staff and management at The Englewood Meridian and Bear Creek Care and Rehabilitation Center; as well as the staff and volunteers at Hospice of Saint Johns in Denver for skillfully and compassionately assisting Art through the final months of his life.

A Celebration of Arthur's life will be held at the Inverness Hotel (Aspen Room) on February 27, 2013 from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.