Lee Sigelman
(1945 - 2009)

Lee entering Carleton in 1963	Lee in his cycling splendor	Lee at GWU in 2009

I was shocked and saddened to hear of Lee’s death.  One of my true regrets in life is that I lost contact with Lee after his wedding in 1969.  That makes it forty years since I last saw him, but I still remember his impish smile when he beat me at a game of cards or when he came up with the “killer word” in the daily crossword puzzle.

Lee and I lived across the hall from each other on Second Goodhue during our sophomore year at Carleton, and we shared a triple, Severance 205, with John Skaggs as seniors.  Lee and I developed a trade-off:  I washed his clothes, and he typed my term papers.  Lee was far ahead of me when it came to a lot of things:  He had a true idea of what he wanted as a career; I was trying to get through college and avoid the draft.  I was learning to drink beer; Lee was already into Canadian whiskey.  We’d do the daily crossword puzzle, in ink, and Lee taught me those “crossword puzzle words:  stoa, neke, snee, and erne.

Lee’s idea of the perfect day was 2:00 PM to 2:00 AM.  I didn’t think it was possible to graduate from Carleton by taking all afternoon classes !  Lee was always a “Big Picture Guy”, and let the little things take care of themselves.  We were Rottblatt teammates for a couple of years, a fact which he neglected to report to the Phy Ed Dep’t at Carleton, and wound up fulfilling  his Phy Ed requirement in grad school.

Even after a forty year separation Lee will always have a special place in my heart.

Lee had 3 loves: his wife of 40 years (classmate Carol Kimball Sigelman), his cats, and political science.

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Page created:  2010