John Steele.Courtesy of family
John Steele: Neurologist. Adventurer. Father. Lover of life. Born Sept. 3, 1934, in Toronto; died May 21, 2022, in Bali; of complications from cancer; aged 87.
John Steele was born into a family of physicians. His father, Earl Steele, was a doctor as was his grandfather, Charles Copp. John followed in their footsteps. He was the oldest of seven children and learned the art of caring early. At the family cabin in Northern Ontario, it was not uncommon for John’s parents to head off into the woods, leaving John in charge of siblings ranging in age from adolescent to toddler.
John studied medicine at the University of Toronto, specializing in neurology. In 1960 he married Margaret Porter, an American artist from Niagara Falls. The couple met at the wedding of their friends; she was a bridesmaid and he was an usher.
From 1960 to 1965, they had three children, Alex, Erica and Julia. John’s own eclectic upbringing would be reflected in the way he chose to raise his own children – as independent people who were exposed at a young age to many different experiences.
John worked as a neurology resident at Toronto General Hospital and helped describe a previously unknown neurological condition that came to be known as Steele-Richardson-Olszewski disease. Today it’s known as progressive supranuclear palsy or PSP.
In 1966, John won the prestigious McLachlan Scholarship, allowing him to pursue studies in Britain and France for two years. From there he travelled to Thailand, where he spent a year practising and teaching in Bangkok, at the Prasat Neurological Hospital. His family travelled along with him.
The family returned to Toronto in 1968 where John worked as a pediatric neurologist at the Hospital for Sick Children. In 1972 he began working as a general physician on the remote atoll of Majuro in the Marshall Islands – and it was in Oceania where he would spend the rest of his life. On Majuro, John did everything from delivering babies to removing fish hooks from people’s eyes and travelling to even more remote atolls on small freighters to deliver medical care. John loved living right beside the sea in a true oceanic wilderness but life was not all idyllic: It was in Majuro that his marriage ended and his life became more solitary.
After six years on the atoll, and having also completed an MSc at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1977, John moved to the island of Pohnpei, where he practised medicine and trained local doctors and nurses in Micronesia.
John Steele out for a ride in Bali.Courtesy of family
In 1982 John settled in Guam and encountered the greatest medical mystery of his life. John cared for and studied patients with a neurodegenerative disorder endemic to the island’s Indigenous Chamorro people. It was called lytico-bodig and it bore similarities to PSP as well as to ALS, Parkinsonism and Alzheimer’s. John’s great hope was that lytico-bodig could prove a sort of Rosetta Stone for neurodegenerative disease.
Unlike other researchers, John lived among his patients for 30 years. He invited scientists to Guam to study the disease and he spoke about it at international conferences. John’s friend Dr. Oliver Sacks wrote about lytico-bodig and John’s work in his book The Island of the Colorblind. John never gave up trying to solve the mystery and at his death, he was collaborating with colleagues on yet another paper about it.
In later years John had three grandchildren. He believed life should be full of adventures and did his best to help make those happen – he loved going on picnics and to the theatre and giving memorable presents. He retired to Bali when he was in his 80s and his family visited him there. He appreciated the kindness of the Indonesian people, the strength of Bali’s culture and the beauty of its landscapes. In Bali, John continued to explore healing in new ways: He spent much of his time living at an Ayurvedic clinic.
John died in Bali with his three children by his side. His last words to them were, “I love you.”
Julia Steele is John’s daughter.
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