Biography
On September 12, 1944 Steve reported to the San Francisco Armed Forces induction Center where he took this oath of allegiance into the Army. A quick trip to Camp Robert on the Central California Coast where they prepared him to fight in WWII. By February Steve left San Francisco and was heading for the south seas.
He landed on March 10, 1945 on Leyte in the Philippines. He fought the long and deadly battle up Balete Pass then contracted malaria complicated by a serious case of Jungle fever.
Steve was transported to the 7th Evacuation Hospital where he spent many weeks there then the war ended. After recuperating he was sent with the 3rd Quartermaster Group assigned to Japan as the allied occupation force.
He was stationed in the town of Otaru on Hokkaido Island. Steve was released from the Army after 26 months of service. On September 18, 1946 Steve finally arrived back to Oakland, California. The complete story in my book Steve Reeves A Moment in Time that is covered in detail his training and fighting.
I always knew that there was a great story with his service. In Milton Moore's book on Steve many years ago he had a short paragraph about Steve's service. At that time I asked myself where's the rest of the story. A paragraph for his 26 months of service in the Second World War, has to be more, and there was, so much more...
The first thing that probably come to your mind when someone mentions the name Steve Reeves is his bodybuilding or film career. I have found throughout the years of being around Steve and his friends is how most of them would say, the most important thing in Steve's life was whatever they were interested in.
The people from the entertainment business would tell you his acting came first over all other areas of his life. The bodybuilders and fitness people would say that it was that interest that consumed his life. The equestrian group couldn't understand how anyone could think it was anything but raising horses.
The truth is that Steve was an expert in all these areas and much more. It only stands to reason that when he was with each particular group of enthuses separately, his focused and attention was in that area of his passion and expertise.
His love of ranching was passed down to him from his family on both sides that were real cowboys from Montana. They raised horses, cattle and did everything in the ranching business. Steve most of all loved raising and riding his horses. We have photos of him on horseback starting from 2 years old and continued to his death. When you see photos of Steve throughout the years one thing you will notice is that he is always around horses somewhere.
In presenting this website I could not exclude this major part of his life which most others do not cover or if they speak about. I hope you enjoy this area and I will update occasionally because we have an extensive collection of many thousand photographs of his animals.
Steve Reeves Biography
This book has it all from little known facts and photos to back it up. Cosidered as the best book ever written on Steve's life you can miss with this book. Information from Steve directly and from years of research. Buy it now at out store, we are the publishers.
Despite his divine destiny, Reeves began life about as far from Mount Olympus and the ancient gods as it was possible to get. Glasgow, Montana is a small town a few miles from the Canadian border, where the northern plains stretch for miles in every direction. It was there on January 21, 1926 that Steve Reeves was born. Steve is a descendent of a combination of Welsh, Irish, German and English heritage.
On his mother's side of the family, Steve's great grandfather Boyce, a tailor by trade, came to America from England and settled with his wife in a small town in Ohio. Later, his son Stephen Boyce moved from Ohio to Montana and eventually purchased a hotel and cattle and sheep ranch in the community of Scobey, Montana.
Within two years all his investments had disappeared. The hotel had burned down, the cattle had contracted hoof and mouth disease, and the sheep were wiped out by some other sort of ailment. Not to be stopped by these unfortunate events Steve’s Grandfather Stephen never quit. Stephen Boyce married Margaret Edith Henderson and had six sons and a daughter. Two of the sons died one from influenza and the other was hit by a car. Stephen’s daughter Golden Viola Boyce became Steve's beloved mother.
On the Reeves side of the family was Manasseh Thomas Reeves who fought under General Sherman in the Civil War. He was born February 3m 1841 in Highland County Ohio. He married Sarah Feustal who was born in Grettstadt Bavaria, Germany. They had one child Sylvester Norris Reeves.
Sylvester married Jessie Day and they had four sons one of them Lester was Steve's dad.
Lester had his own ranching business and was killed in 1927 from a ranching accident, Steve was just six months old at the time.
From there it a fascinating story of how Steve overcame the negative things in life to becoming true success story. Read the complete biography of Steve in "Steve Reeves A Moment in Time". You can get your copy at our store.
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