Submitted by: Dan Rich
Oct. 15, 1926 - Dec. 15, 2008
South Bend Tribune 12/20/2008
SOUTH BEND - Gregory L. Curme, Professor Emeritus
University of Notre Dame, died on December 15, 2008, after a
brief bout with cancer. He was 82. Professor Curme was born
Lawrence Gregory Curme on October 15, 1926, to Gilbert and
Margaret Curme of Chicago, Illinois. He was the youngest and last
surviving of three sons. Greg Curme dropped out of high school in
1943 at age 17 to enlist in the Marine Corps and was honorably
discharged from the Marines in 1946 after service in the Pacific.
Even though he never graduated from high school, Professor Curme
earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Illinois
after the war. He married Barbara M. Zimmermann, also born
in Chicago, who survives, and had four sons, a daughter-in-law,
and a granddaughter, all surviving. They are Bruce and Helene
Curme of La Crosse, Indiana, David of South Bend, Roger of
Austin, Texas, Frank of South Bend; and granddaughter, Stephanie
of Edwardsburg, Michigan. Professor Curme taught statistics in
the Economics Department at Notre Dame from 1964 until his
retirement in 1984. He considered himself to be a teacher first
and foremost, though he did have one very notable piece of
research in pure mathematics published in the Quarterly of
Applied Mathematics (July 1969) titled Classical Analytic
Representations. He was a long time resident of St. Paul's
Retirement Home on South Ironwood Drive in South Bend and had
many friends there.
Professor Curme received the Last Rites of the Roman Catholic Church a few days before his death and a memorial mass is being planned by the family.