By: Brian Zanzonico
For years, Glenn, 56, and Curtis, 46, lived across the street from each other on Morris Avenue West in Malverne. They even worked for the same lumber company for a time.
The two, along with sister Joan, were raised in the house where Glenn and his wife, Mary Jane, now live. The Meyrans' parents, Virginia and the late William, moved the family to Malverne in the early 1960s from the Bronx, the same borough Curtis protected for the New York City Fire Department. The same borough where he leaped to his death to avoid a raging apartment fire on Jan. 23.
"He was a good brother," Glenn said. "A good guy. But we did our own thing. There were a lot of years between us, so we did different things at different times."
Curtis was 4 when the Meyrans left the Bronx. He attended District 13 schools, and graduated from Valley Stream North High School in 1976. As a child he was a dominating left-handed pitcher in the Malverne Little League. Glenn remembered when he and his father watched Curtis throw a one-hitter, playing on a team sponsored by Nordon Drug Store, which still stands today. "The way he played ball, he was outstanding," Glenn said.
Curtis later coached in the Malverne Little League.
Glenn said that Curtis lived at home until he married Jeanette. The young couple lived briefly in East Rockaway, Glenn said, but returned to Malverne when the house across the street from the family home was put up for sale. By that time, Glenn and his family were already living in the family home.
Curtis and Glenn worked together for a while for a lumber company before Curtis left to start a small construction business. Then, at the behest of his father-in-law, Curtis began taking civil service tests in the city. He also applied to the New York City Fire Department, which was the first to come calling. "He did it for the great benefits, for his family," Glenn said.
Glenn said Curtis was always close with fellow firefighters, often having them over for barbecues in the summer. Curtis's brother said the department has been incredibly supportive of Jeanette and Curtis's children, Dennis, Angela and Danine. In the days after their father's death, firefighters, as they usually do, lightened some of the burden for Jeanette, handling the grocery shopping, clearing the snow after the Jan. 28 dusting and waving away reporters.
Curtis's Jan. 29 funeral Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Malverne, where Jeanette is a fourth-grade religious instruction teacher, drew about 12,000 firefighters and friends. He was the first resident of Malverne killed in the FDNY since Lieutenant Joseph Cavalieri in 1998. Cavalieri, 42, a member of Ladder 170 in Canarsie, Brooklyn, died along with two other firemen in a development complex fire in Brooklyn.
