AMHERST, MA: Carol Aschenbach Lee, 90, of Amherst, Massachusetts died on July 13, 2024 after a short illness. 

Born and raised in the upper east side of Manhattan, she lived next door to her girls school, Brearley. There she was noted for arriving last each morning, along with the girl with the longest commute. Despite her imperfect language skills, she took french for 12 years, and spent the summer after graduation in Paris, contemplating being a couturier. Her father indulged her love of dresses when she wrote to him those magic words, “it’s on sale.”

One of her treasured possessions was a letter from Laurence Olivier rejecting her offer of knitted socks, because he only wore argyle.  Another treasured possession was a baby book created in 1934 by Dr. Seuss for her parents, back when he was just Ted Geisel.

She chose to go to Smith College over Radcliffe, because they had a program abroad and she very much wanted to go to Paris her junior year.  Although she regretted her choice at the time (Rural! No men!), she loved her school reunions greatly, and was sad the pandemic and age interfered with attending the last few that were held.

Carol majored in art history and had a lifelong love of history, art and politics.  Too arty to fit in a traditional world, and too traditional to fit in an arty world, she was always in a category of her own. 

She met her husband, James E. Lee, while in graduate school studying urban planning at Harvard where he was lecturing as a city planner.  They were married from 1962 until his death in 1985.  She was also the long term partner of Richard Mudgett, who died in 2018.  She loved them both dearly.  She was able to travel to many destinations with Richard, and enjoyed visits to China, India, Yemen, Scandinavia, Italy, Egypt, Turkey, and Russia.  She always regretted not being able to go with Jim Lee on a train trip across Canada, or on the Orient Express.

She leaves behind her daughter, Amity, of Amherst MA and her partner Michael Chiaravalle; grandsons Owen James Bradley and Ellis Edwin Bradley, myriad friends and family, including stepchildren David Lee and his wife Laurie (Winthrop, ME), Steven Lee and his wife Cathy Gerson (Barnardsville, NC), Kenneth Lee and his wife Vickie (Littleton, CO), Rebecca Rayfield and her husband Barry (Wake Forest, NC), Jon Lee and his wife Sally Richter (Arlington, MA), and Cynthia Lee (San Francisco, CA) and her partner Mike Valenza, along with many additional stepgranchildren.  A special shout out to Vivian Glassman (Newton, MA) and Margaret Malone (Amherst, MA) for being her adopted family for decades.

One of her greatest joys in recent years was having a martini at 30Boltwood, and the kindness shown to her there by the staff was extraordinary (a huge shoutout to Adam, for his exceptional compassion)..  She also loved her classes taken through Five College Learning in Retirement, her weekly Shakespeare class, and playing bridge. She was reading and thinking and learning, and yearning to talk ultra liberal politics, until the very end.

There will be no memorial, but if you want to remember her, consider subscribing to The Progressive Populist based in Storm Lake, Iowa, or watch an episode of Democracy Now with Amy Goodman in her honor at democracynow.org.

Memorial guestbook at www.douglassfuneral.com