Harold Pethic Lee

Visitation:

Friday, 11/17/2006

4:30 pm - 7:00 pm

Home of Tim Lee, Coon Rapids

Service:

Saturday, 11/18/2006

11:00 am

Coon Rapids High School Audutorium

Coon Rapids, Iowa

Interment of cremated remains:

At a later date

Harold Lee, biographer of agricultural innovator Roswell Garst, and professor emeritus and trustee of Grinnell College, died on Monday October 30 at the age of 73. He had a heart attack while on an Art History Tour in Morocco with his wife of 48 years, Antonia Tosh? Garst Lee. He resided in London, where he and his wife had lived for 35 years.

Harold Pethic Lee was born August 21, 1933, in Oakland, California, son of Hugh Brabazon Lee and Amy Ida Russell Lee. He was the youngest of four brothers. The family lived in various locations in the Lake County, CA area and then settled in Chico where he went to high school, graduating in 1950. He liked it there and always considered it his home town. He played the trombone in a jazz band, and thought of pursuing music as a career. Although he got rid of the trombone, he maintained a deep love of music throughout his life, enjoying concerts and the opera.

He credited his oldest brother Glynn, a veteran of WW2, with encouraging him to get an education. He attended Chico State college for 2 years and then finished his degree at the University of California at Berkley, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1954.

After graduation he enlisted in the army and was stationed at Fort Knox., Kentucky, and then at Mannheim, Germany, experiences which he would later say were particularly formative in his life. He served in an armored division and also worked for the army staff newspaper, where he discovered an interest in writing and journalism. In 1957, he returned to the University of California at Berkley on the G.I. bill. He gained his MA in English Literature in 1958.

He met Tosh Garst in a coffee shop on Berkleys Telegraph Avenue in the summer of 1957, when they were introduced by a friend of hers, Forest Miller, who happened to be from Lees home town of Chico. Harold and Tosh always maintained that it was love at first sight. They were married in the summer of 1958 in Coon Rapids, Iowa.

The newlyweds moved to New York City where he studied at the Columbia School of journalism, receiving an M.S. in 1959, but he didnt take to journalism and, looking for a different career path, he got a teaching position at the English department at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh where they lived for the next two years.

The academic life seemed to suit, so the Lees moved on to Boston, where he pursued his PhD in English Literature from Harvard University, which he was awarded in 1967. His dissertation was on the writings of 12th century Spanish monk, Joachim of Fiore. After that he gained a teaching position at Boston University in the English department. They also started a family in these years: son Timothy was born in 1964 and daughter Amy in 1968.

The Lees spent some summers in London where Harold conducted research at the British Library and worked to turn his dissertation into a publishable book. In 1971, the family moved to London. We were just going for a year?, he said once, but then we accidentally stayed another 25?. He lived in London for the rest of his life, taking dual citizenship along with Tosh in 2000. He loved living in London and especially loved its libraries.

In 1974 Grinnell College established a study abroad program in London for its students. Lee was a Senior Lecturer and Adjunct professor with the program from its inception in 1974 until his retirement in 1993 and was its director from 1979 through 1983. During this time in London he began work on a biography of his father "in "law, agricultural innovator Roswell Garst, travelling to Iowa in the summers to conduct interviews with Roswell and conduct research. Roswell Garst, a biography was published in 1984.

While at Grinnell-in London, he taught courses on Medieval History and literature, the 18th century, and the British Raj in India. Upon his retirement from Grinnell he researched and wrote a biography of the brothers John and Henry Lawrence, who were prominent administrators in the British Raj in India during the 19th Century.

In retirement, he enjoyed working as a guide at the Victoria and Albert Museum, studying Art History, and working as a trustee for Grinnell College. He was also a trustee of Burlington College in Vermont from 1993 until 1998.

He will be remembered for his playful wit, his gentle nature, and the warm enthusiasm with which he engaged the world.

He was the author of four books: Roswell Garst, A Biography, Iowa State University Press, 1984; Letters From An American Farmer, The Eastern European and Russian Correspondence of Roswell Garst (with Richard Lowitt), Northern Illinois University Press, 1987; Western Mediterranean Prophecy, The School of Jaochim of Fiore and the Fourteenth Century Breviloquim (with Marjorie Reeves and Giulio Silano), Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1989; and Brothers in The Raj, The Lives of John and Henry Lawrence, Oxford University Press, 2002.

He is survived by his wife, Antonia Tosh? Garst Lee of London, England; his brother, Jack Lee of San Mateo California; his son, Timothy Lee of Coon Rapids, Iowa; his daughter Amy Lee of Chicago, Illinois; and two grandsons, Nathan Lee and Zachary Lee of Rockwell City, Iowa.

A memorial service will be held for him in London on Sunday December 3 at 3pm. at Pitshanger Manor at Ealing Green. The family requests that no flowers be sent. Anyone who wishes to make a memorial donation can contribute to the Thomas Rest Haven Assisted Living Project (217 Main Street, Coon Rapids, IA 50058), or, in London, to the Victoria and Albert museum.