Lee, Laura L. (Laura Louise), 1914-1987

Laura Lee was born Laura Louise Smith in Chicago on May 20, 1914. She completed a B.S. in Speech from Northwestern University in 1935. From 1936-1938, she worked as a public school speech correctionist in Gary, Indiana. She continued to attend Northwestern and received her M.A. in Speech Correction in 1938. For the next two years, Lee taught at San Jose State College in California.

She returned to Illinois in 1940 and was married to Irving Lee on June 23, 1940. Their only child, David Alfred Lee, was born on May 11, 1949. Her husband died in 1955 after a sudden illness.

She was Instructor at the School of Speech at Northwestern University, 1956-1960; Associate Professor, 1960-1965; Assistant Professor of Speech Pathology, 1965-1974; and Professor of Speech and Language Pathology, 1974-1979.

Lee was an active writer and lecturer in the 1960's and 1970's. She spoke on child developmental speech at numerous workshops and conferences in the United States and Europe. She wrote numerous articles in the field of speech pathology and co-authored a number of books, including Handling Barriers in Communication (1957), Developmental Sentence Analysis (1974), and Interactive Language Development Teaching (1975).

Lee retired from Northwestern in June 1979 and remained in Evanston until her death on January 13, 1987.

From the guide to the Laura Lee (1914-1987) Papers, 1930-1987, (Northwestern University Archives)