Jeff D. Steiber

JEFFREY D. STEIBER’S MEMORIAL

Musician/Writer, Storyteller, Poet, Outdoorsman, Adventurer, Sports Enthusiast, Motorcycle Enthusiast, Army Veteran and Master Mechanic

Jeff Steiber passed away after a short but eventful life at age 52 on November 5, 2023.  He survived a difficult youth and many troubled times, but he enjoyed many adventures throughout his life.  With amazing drive and a powerful will, he overcame the many emotional and physical injuries and life-changing health problems that he experienced.

Jeff has always had great appreciation for art, beauty, and nature, at the same time being gifted with strength, intelligence and ingenuity.  He is a passionate, vital, kind, sweet, and fiercely ethical man with strong character and an indomitable work ethic, even though he regularly experienced setbacks that changed the course of his life and made it difficult for him to attain his dreams.  Through it all, he maintained the desire to always do the right thing.  He is an amazing soul who is now free to move forward in his spiritual path.

In his youth, Jeff was very active and adventurous in the deserts east of the Sierra.  He also camped and fished in the eastern Sierra.  He was a sports enthusiast, being a star baseball player, a rock climber, a cyclist, and a dirt biker.  When he moved to the San Diego area, he became an avid surfer and motorcycle cruising enthusiast.  He has always been an avid outdoorsman and he will always love nature.

As a young adult from 1993 to 1997, Jeff joined the U.S. Army and became a combat medic and sergeant, serving at Fort Lewis, WA and in Thailand during Cobra Gold.  He earned many awards, including the Healer Elite award in the “Mighty Third Herd”, 514th Medical Company.  He also earned a mechanics badge as vehicle maintenance supervisor and leader in his unit.  As a combat medic in training, Jeff worked at Madigan Army Medical Center in Washington, performing emergency medical services to help save the lives of many seriously injured civilians.

Jeff also earned a degree at Universal Technical Institute, successfully completing training to become a highly skilled ASE-Certified Master Mechanic, able to build entire engines from conception.  Having grown up with his father owning an auto repair shop, he started his career as a mechanic performing restorations and mechanical work in several shops in Ridgecrest, California.  He later went on to perform auto repair work as a Master Mechanic in the San Diego County area, including engine restorations with Calamia Customs in Vista, CA and journeyman mechanical work at West Escondido Auto and Transmission Services.

In 2000, Jeff’s will to live and his desire to take care of his young son, Tim, provided the drive to survive a terminal cancer diagnosis and aggressive treatment.  Miraculously, he had the vital energy to recover, and he lived fully for 23 more years.

I met Jeff in 2007 at Camping World in San Marcos, CA when he was six years out recovering from his cancer, and we were blessed with 16 years of a wonderful and loving partnership, starting in San Diego County and eventually moving to the Sacramento area.

When I met him, Jeff had graduated to motorcycle cruising, and I joined him on many trips out of San Diego and up and down the eastern Sierra, both with and without his motorcycle buddies.  It became one of our favorite pastimes to travel on the motorcycle and go camping and fishing in the Sierras or ride up and down the California coast.

I think Jeff is best known for being a musician and songwriter by his friends and acquaintances.  Enjoying and writing music and playing guitar is the passion of Jeff’s entire life. He is an amazing music historian who learned and enjoyed decades of blues, all types of rock and roll, folk, and country.  He is also a poet, filling journals with lyrics for his own music and completing dozens of songs.  He was very talented, skillfully playing his favorite artists’ music as well as his own music on various acoustic and electric guitars.  He continually overcame physical troubles to keep his guitar skills alive and well.  He thanks his passion for music and writing songs for helping him live through some of his worst times.

Jeff was also an entertaining storyteller with quick humor who loved an audience.  He told me many stories about his youth and young adult life as well as daily stories during our life together.  He greatly valued his friends, even though he was not able to see them often.  Often when people met him, they gravitated towards him because of his character and his musical and storytelling talents.  He was often quiet and courteous until he felt comfortable, but once he started performing or telling stories, he could become quite charismatic!

Jeff leaped with joy out of his broken body three years after suffering a massive heart attack and brain injury in November of 2020.  He miraculously came back from death, and he continued to express a strong desire to get better and live as fully as he could for these last three years.  He often expressed love, devotion, and thankfulness to me for helping him to do so.  But I was there with a friend and a chaplain when he leaped, and it was clear that he was ready this time to be free and continue his journey past this life.

Jeff is survived by his wife (myself), Sherry (Frazier) Steiber; his son, Tim Steiber and fiancée Josie; his father, Larry Steiber; and his brother, Joel Steiber.  Just two days before Jeff left this life, he received calls from both his father and his son, and I am sure that he was happy to hear the good news that Tim and Josie are expecting a baby.

It would be greatly appreciated if anyone who reads this memorial and knows Jeff shares their own thoughts, pictures, or stories on this memorial website.  Please contribute!  As Jeff’s life was often fractured by events and much of his memory has disappeared in the last few years, I have lost contact with many of his family, friends and acquaintances, and I know some of them only by stories that Jeff has told me.  It would be a gift for all to make these connections in honoring Jeff, and to be able to enjoy what you have to offer, even if we know you!