Free 03.She.Wanted.It.All.2005 by Kathryn Casey

swimming pool in the backyard, the Beard house became a destination on July Fourth, when Steve manned the grill and closed the festivities with fireworks. “On holidays, he always assumed we’d be together with family,” says Paul. “Family was important to Dad and Mom both.”
    When Paul joined the YMCA swim team, Steve rushed home from the office early to be his coach. He timed his son’s laps in the backyard pool, pushing him to be competitive. One day, Paul was hit by a car while bicycling. Steve, in his Jaguar, rushed to the scene so fast the police couldn’t stop him on the freeway. When he finally pulled over, he informed them that they could follow him and write the ticket but that he was headed to the accident. “He was a good dad, always there for us,” says Paul.
    There was little that Steve liked better than giving gifts. At Christmas he presided over the celebration, grinning as the family opened their presents. One year he surprised Elise with a beautiful gold watch; another year, he parked a brand new 1962 Oldsmobile F85 station wagon out front, visible from the bay window. “Don’t you notice anything?” he said, growing exasperated as he waited with excitement for Elise to see the car.
    The truth was, Elise never liked station wagons. She preferred sportier cars, like another of Steve’s presents, a 1969 Camaro with a black and orange houndstooth interior, just like that year’s Indy pace car. “He knocked her socks off,” says Paul.
    As his success grew, Steve bought the family a three-hundred-acre weekend ranch with two creeks and a lake, near Gainesville, Texas, where they raised Beefmaster cattle, horses, and 150 head of sheep. Steve worked long hours, but in his time off, he took Paul and Steve fishing and hunting for dove, geese, and quail. Later, when beef prices plummeted and Steve’s allergies worsened, he sold the ranch and bought a twenty-five-foot cabin cruiser they kept on Lake Dallas. Summer vacations were car trips to Padre Island, a Texas barrier island that forms a long string of beach fringed by high-rise hotels. In 1964 he took the entire family to the New York World’s Fair.
    A man with a big appetite, over the years Steve grew round at the waistline. He slicked his hair back and wore a small mustache. With a ruddy complexion, he resembled the rotund comic Jackie Gleason. His laugh as full of life as the star of the
Honeymooners,
friends described Steve as “hale and hearty,” “a man’s man,” “boisterous,” and “fun.”
    Known for never mincing words and telling friends exactly what she thought, Elise was his match. Never shy, she sang in a women’s barbershop quartet wearing a fringed, 1920s flapper dress on her petite and athletic frame. After the early years of raising three children, she took up golf and became an exceptional player, one year winning the championship at Brookhaven Country Club, where they were members. She taught Paul and Steven III to golf and spent so much time on the links, three to four days a week, that at times Steve resented her dedication to the game. Yet, as active as she was, Elise was a chain smoker. Friends rarely saw her without a cigarette in her mouth. And, they both enjoyed their cocktails. “Dad liked his vodka,” says Paul. “He wasn’t an alcoholic, but he definitely liked to drink.”
    Yet, Steve was a careful man. He often told friends that while young he’d been pulled over for drinking and driving.From that point on, he never drank more than he knew he could manage if he planned to get behind the wheel. “He called his drinks ‘Whitey Loudmouths,’ because he got happier when he was drinking, and louder,” says a friend. “But he never drank before five and never that I saw to the stage that he was sloppy drunk.”
    As they aged, Elise and Steve remained very much a conservative and traditional married couple. She spoke her mind, but he ruled the family. As he grew successful, they became wealthy, but never