Obituary of Lee Leibson

Lee Leibson passed away peacefully at the age of 97 on June 26, 2023.  Known to her friends and family as Leah and Lakie, Lee was born in Fall River/New Bedford, MA into what she claimed was a great "wailing" family.  
 

After spending her high school years in Charleston, WV, Lee and her parents moved to St. Petersburg, FL in 1944 where she was quickly absorbed into the small, tight-knit Jewish community there.  She called St. Pete home.

Coming from a Depression-era family where a college education was neither affordable to her parents nor a priority for daughters, Lee never went to college and became a loving wife, homemaker, and mother to Garry, Sharon, and Paul Grossman in Pittsburgh, PA.  Lee was a founding member of her synagogue in Pittsburgh, Beth Israel Center, where she served as Sisterhood President, newsletter editor, and Hadassah Group X President.  She made it a point to gift Hadassah Life Memberships to her daughter, daughters-in-law, and granddaughters.  She also worked as a secretary in industry and at Carnegie Mellon University.

Lee was a woman of great personal strength and courage.  Despite surviving being widowed at 48, her son, Paul's suicide in 2005, and a disabling accident that left her wheel-chair bound in a nursing home since 2016, she almost always displayed a hopeful attitude and caring for everyone whose lives touched hers, and was happily married to her 99 year-old husband, Marvin Leibson, for the past 34 years.

She left life with the grace that she showed all through it.  She was a true daughter of Israel.

Lee is survived by her husband, Marvin, her daughter Sharon Ogburn (Greg), her son Garry Grossman (Beth), and her daughter-in-law Cathy Grossman; she is also survived by her grandchildren Elyse Grossman, Julie Grossman, Sam Grossman, Eliott Grossman, Sophia Ogburn, and Jessica Hughes (Corey); and her great-grandchildren, Ben Hughes and Quentin Hughes; she is also survived by her sister, Mickey Walter, her nephews Steve Walter and Dean Walter, Jeff Grossman (Ellen), and her niece Barbara Sterensis (Joe).