Lory Stevens Conder

February 23, 1923 - May 16, 2017

Lory Stevens (Steve) Conder was born in Memphis, Tennessee, on Feb. 23, 1923 and died on May 16, 2017, in Phoenix, Arizona.

A World War II veteran, he joined the Navy just before the war started in 1941 and was at boot camp in San Diego when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7 of that year. He served for the full duration of the war, being discharged in October of 1945. During those war years he was stationed on a mine-sweeper at the Panama Canal, ridding the canal entrances of mines planted by German or Japanese submarines. Later he was reassigned to a sub-chaser in the Pacific. This was a small ship which accompanied groups of larger ships to protect them from Japanese submarines, and he was involved in a number of invasions of the Pacific islands. Toward the end of the war, he was sent back to the U.S. to teach at a school in Norfolk, Virginia.

After the war, he went to college on the G.I. Bill, attending Colorado School of Mines, where he earned his Mining Engineer degree. He worked as an engineer for his entire career in various mining towns in Kentucky; Carlsbad, N.M.; El Paso, Texas; Douglas, Arizona, and finally in Phelps Dodge Corporations headquarters in Phoenix.

He married Marjorie Anne Uren in 1949 at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Douglas, Arizona., They had three children: Lory, Junior; Michael and Karen; ten grandchildren and 31 great-grandchildren. He was proud of them all.

As a teenager, he served as an acolyte in his Episcopal church in Memphis, was a member of Episcopal churches in Kentucky, New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. In Douglas he designed the Sunday School addition for St. Stephen’s Church as well as the columbarium. He and his wife became members of St. Matthew’s in 1982.

His family and friends remember his wonderful sense of humor, his kindness, his sharp intelligence, his good nature, and his many artistic talents in carving and silversmithing. He was a master of puns and kept all his family laughing.