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Tearful farewell to Orange County ‘champion of childhood,’ Bill Steiner

“Would it be intrusive to send a photographer to your dad’s memorial?” I asked one of Bill Steiner’s sons.

“Dad would prefer if it were covered live on TV,” he quipped.

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And so, as he would have wanted, hundreds of people packed into Orange’s Covenant Presbyterian Church on Friday, Jan. 13, to celebrate Steiner’s life and recount their favorite memories of the child welfare advocate. Steiner, beloved by so many, died on Dec.15 on a trip to see his grandson in New York. He was 85.

Daughter Laurie Hendron surveyed the many familiar faces in the crowd — movers and shakers in the county GOP, elected officials, charity executives, county workers, friends from all stages of his life — and informed them they were part of Steiner’s script.

“He had this planned,” Hendron said.

Bill Steiner as a boy

Then played a video spanning some 80 years of Steiner’s life, from when he was a wide-eyed, bare-bummed, Great Depression baby to his days as a Boy Scout to his editorship at the high school newspaper. There he was, bobbing for apples as a fraternity boy in college; there he was, in thick, dark-rimmed glasses, graduating from USC with a master’s in social work.

There was Steiner with kids when he worked for Los Angeles County Department of Adoptions, and when he worked with treatment programs for abused and neglected children, and when he became director of the Good Samaritan Centers children’s agency, and when he took the helm at Orange County’s Albert Sitton Home for abused and neglected children.

Bill Steiner, child welfare advocate (Courtesy Steiner family)Steiner with kids when he leveraged his considerable charm to replace the Sitton home, raising some $8 million to build the spacious, Spanish-style Orangewood Children’s Home via a powerhouse private-public partnership. “It’s for the kids!” he’d chirp as he extracted donations from the county’s rich and powerful.

Steiner with kids when he became executive director of the Orangewood Foundation, which would go on to raise millions more for vulnerable Orange County youth.

And Steiner with his own kids. When you think of my dad, said son Scott Steiner, a Superior Court judge, you think of the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” He touched so many lives that it would be a very different world if he had never been in it.

Bill Steiner and his family in Cabo San Lucas (Courtesy Steiner family)

So said Mike McKenzie, who landed at Orangewood when he was a teen and stayed until Steiner found him his forever family. That transformed his life and led him to a career working with underserved kids.

So said Yvette Verastegui, who landed at Orangewood with her siblings and was taken under Steiner’s wing. She’s now a judge in Los Angeles Superior Court.

The five Steiner children had hundreds of brothers and sisters, but somehow, Steiner always made time for each of them, they said. Son Jim remembers sitting on his lap when Steiner played poker with his pals — and went on to join the group as an adult. He and his father showed one another no mercy.

There was politics — the Orange Unified School District board, the Orange City Council, his fateful appointment to the County Board of Supervisors shortly before the bankruptcy. Steiner in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, studying how the rapid changes impacted children. Steiner in China on a cultural exchange. Steiner smiling with President George W. Bush in one picture, with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in another.

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He continued his work for abused and neglected children nationwide after he left the county in 1999. He was an elder with the church and a supporter of its school. There were so many honors and awards — Child Advocate of the Year, Citizen of the Year, Crystal Vision, Lifetime Achievement. Orangewood’s “William ‘Bill’ Steiner Heart of Service Award” is named after him.

Jim Bright, elder with Covenant Presbyterian Church, asked people for a single word describing Steiner and gathered these: Kind. Caring. Passionate. Compassionate. Hopeful. Inspirational. Teacher. Mentor. Servant.

Two of his 16 grandchildren wept as they recounted how he would sing them lullabies, take them to concerts with thousands of screaming teens, show genuine curiosity about who they were, what they thought, what they liked and disliked.

“He was an extraordinary man who deeply and profoundly impacted thousands and thousands of people,” said friend Karen Roper.

In video shot years ago for one of Steiner’s many achievement awards, he explained himself.

“It’s all a puzzle,” he said. “You put the little pieces together and realize you can make change — maybe just in increments — but for the better, to give a child hope for the future.

“You will find, as you go through life, that will sustain you,” he said. “If you make a difference in a life, that’s what it’s all about.”

Steiner was a person of action, a force for good, said Pastor Scott Larson. “If you want to do something to honor Bill’s memory,” he exhorted the crowd, “go do something good.”

Daughter Hendron envisioned Steiner arriving at the Pearly Gates, and was sure he was treated warmly. “Welcome,” the angels surely said. “It is now time to rest.”


Source: Orange County Register

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