Pamela Gail Steele

Pamela Gail Steele, age 74, of Knoxville. Pam died peacefully at her home on Wednesday, March 20, 2019, after a four year battle with breast cancer. Pam was born on August 25, 1944, to Buford Elmer (B.E.) Steele and Carolyn Blanch Fuller Steele in Panama City, Florida, where her father was stationed with the Army Air Corps during WWII. Following the war, her parents returned to Knoxville and she grew up in Fountain City, attending Inskip Elementary and Central High schools and graduating in 1962. She studied at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, for two years before returning to the University of Tennessee to complete her Bachelor’s degree in journalism. After stints as a reporter for the Clinton Courier Journal and later a social worker, she went back to school and earned a Master’s degree in high education and counseling from the University of Kentucky. In 1974, at the age of 29, Pam entered the University Of Louisville School Of Law, where she met her future husband, then in his last year of law school. She transferred to Georgetown University Law Center when he took a job in Washington, D.C., and she earned her Juris Doctor degree from that institution in 1977. While in Washington, D.C., Pam lived on Capitol Hill. She and her husband bought and renovated an 1884 row house at 312 A Street, N.E., one block behind the Supreme Court building. She worked as a lawyer in the headquarters’ offices of the United States Small Business Administration and the United States Economic Development Administration. And they started a family. In 1986, Pam, her husband, and their two young sons moved to Knoxville and settled in Sequoyah Hills. Pam entered private practice as a lawyer for two years, then joined the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee as an assistant United States attorney. She quickly rose to become civil chief in that office and held that position until her retirement in 2006. Pam’s interest in sailing began in 1979 with a vacation to the British Virgin Islands. She developed her skills sailing on the Chesapeake Bay during her time in Washington, D.C., and maintained them after moving to Knoxville with sailing vacations. Undeterred by serious injuries sustained while rafting the Grand Canyon and sailing in Tahiti, Pam bought an offshore sailboat with her husband in 2002. Taking progressively longer vacations, she and he ventured as far north as Maine and as far south as Trinidad before retiring in 2006 and heading to the Mediterranean Sea. What was envisioned as a two-year hiatus stretched into 11 years, during which time Pam sailed to over one hundred ports in 17 countries, including Tunisia, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Malta, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Turkey and, most dearly, Greece. One highlight was the 2008 Eastern Mediterranean Yacht Rally, a six-week trip with 70 other sailboats from Turkey to Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Egypt. A wonderful wife and mother, Pam was also remarkable for the depth and breadth of friendships she maintained to the end, not only friends made after her return to Knoxville in 1986, but also friends from elementary school, high school, college, law school, her years in Washington D.C., and her years of sailing. She will be missed by friends in many states and eight countries. Pam was preceded in death by her parents and by her sister-in-law, Frances Cary. She is survived by her beloved husband and best friend of 43 years, Stephen G. Anderson, by their two sons, Nate Anderson, Knoxville, and Ben Anderson, Asheville, N.C., by her brother, Kenny Steele, Mt. Juliet, Tenn., and by her aunt, Bobbie Sue Steele Parker, Knoxville. After settling back on land, Pam changed her congregational affiliation to First Presbyterian Church, where a funeral service will be held at 3:00 PM on Tuesday, March 26, Reverend Dr. William C. Pender officiating. The family will receive friends following the service in the Fellowship Hall. In lieu of flowers, Pam requests that memorial gifts be made to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation or to Planned Parenthood. Online condolences may be sent to www.rosemortuary.com.

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Pamela Gail Steele

August 25, 1944 - March 20, 2019