Phili B. Deboo
Phili B. Deboo died at home in Memphis on April 30, 2021, of kidney failure and other ailments. He was born in 1932 into the Parsi Zoroastrian community of Bombay (as it was then known), India, the son of Beheram and Homi Kavarana Deboo. At the age of twenty, he came to this country to study at Louisiana State University, from which he received his M.A. and PH.D. degrees in geology. After teaching for two years at Eastern New Mexico State University in Portales, he moved to Memphis, where, for over forty years, he was a professor of geology in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Memphis (as they are now known). For much of that time, he served as chairman of the department.
Phili was a passionate and inspiring teacher, as is evidenced by the numerous students who have remained in touch with him over the decades. This same zeal carried over to his myriad other interests and to the many friendships that arose and endured from them. These included golf, racquetball, tennis, and (as he got older) walking; attending concerts and operas; and playing poker, both with old friends at home and new friends in Tunica. He was an excellent cook, often recreating his mother’s Parsi-indian dishes that he remembered from his childhood. He loved traveling and once remarked that he could never see an airplane flying overhead without wishing he were on it.
Phili Deboo is survived by his wife of fifty plus years, Terese (Terry) Block Deboo; his daughter Ana Deboo (Douglas Ende) of Vashon Island, WA; and his children by marriage (whom he helped raise) and their families: Katherine B. Steuer and daughter Lena Soares of Memphis; Joseph Steuer (Erin Fitzgerald) and daughters Beatrice and Clara Steuer of Long Island, NY; and Sally Steuer (Thomas Williams) of Redwood City, CA.
Due to Covid-19 restrictions, Phili seldom left home after March 21, 2020. For that same reason, no celebration of his life will be held at this time. The family requests that any donations be made to to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, stjude.org, or to the Earth Sciences Enrichment Fund at the University of Memphis, memphis.edu/development/waystogive/honor-memory.php.
He wrote his own epitaph, and his family agrees that it is apt: “He did not fool himself.”