Steve Cox gave up his idea of becoming an architect “because of the math,” said his wife, Mary Ellen Cox.
Instead, he went into photography and was photo-lab director at The Denver Post for several years.
Cox died Tuesday morning at Rose Medical Center. The exact cause of death isn’t known, but his wife said it could have been a pulmonary embolism. He was 64.
A service is planned for 2 p.m. today at Fairmount Mortuary, East Alameda Avenue and South Quebec Street.
Cox’s math skills were so bad that “in 33 years of marriage, he probably wrote 10 checks,” said his wife, who is a stock trader.
Cox was an enthusiastic photographer but didn’t usually take pictures for The Post.
He was recruited to run the lab. He was responsible for correcting all color negatives that photographers turned in, making them color-balanced before they went to the printers.
But he once took a series of photos that appeared in The Post and in newspapers throughout the U.S. and in several countries. Cox was at the photo-department window one day when The Post was at 15th and California streets. He saw a woman threatening to jump from the second floor of a hotel across the street.
Cox yelled at her to “go back inside,” former Post photographer Duane Howell recalled.
But she continued sitting on the window sill and soon jumped to the sidewalk. She landed on a passer-by. Both were injured, though not critically.
That series of photos is on display at the Cox home in east Denver.
Cox loved projects. He built furniture, cabinets and doors for his home and remodeled the family home in the mountains. He also did stained glass, built an arbor and a pond for his yard and did most of the cooking.
He insisted on making whatever piece of furniture his wife wanted, although “I could have bought it for $100, and he spent $300 for the materials,” she said, laughing.
Cox was “smitten” with England, and the couple made at least 25 trips to the British Isles, his wife said.
Stephen Templin Cox was born Feb. 18, 1942, in Sheridan, Wyo., where his father was an accountant. He graduated from Montana State University in Bozeman, served in the Navy and then moved to Denver.
He met Mary Ellen Morin of Southbridge, Mass., when they lived in the same apartment building in Park Hill. They were married April 14, 1973.
Cox worked as a claims adjuster for an insurance company when he and a friend decided to open the Colour Co., a photography lab in east Denver. In 1982, he was asked to come to The Post. He retired in 1994.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by two sons, Stephen Templin Cox Jr. of Denver and Charles Storer Cox of Aurora; a granddaughter; and his sister, Jeanne Burnham Smith of Richland, Wash.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at vculver@denverpost.com or 303-820-1223.
