Above / Back in 2014, Lee Lindberg participated in a “Pass the Friendship Plate” tradition organized by folks at Naper Settlement to celebrate the anniversary of Martin-Mitchell Mansion built in 1894.
Sunday afternoon LeRoy Lindberg’s son, Jerry, sent an email to a long list of names with news that “Lee” had died that morning after a long illness at age 88. With gratitude to all, Jerry Lindberg said funeral arrangements were pending. Later we learned visitation is planned at Beidelman-Kunsch with a memorial service at Our Saviour’s Evangelical Lutheran Church.
My first introduction to Lee Lindberg came via an email from Wayne Fischer in September 2012 with information about the first “Post Social & Dinner for the 2012-2013 Legion Year,” a time when the veterans’ organization installed new officers for the year.
Wayne wrote, “Our World-Famous Kendall Cooks will be preparing the dinner consisting of Prime Rib with potatoes, gravy and vegetables; and the dessert is provided by Lee Lindberg, your new Junior Vice Commander of American Legion Post 43.”
One thing led to another and about a year later after sampling many of Lee’s scrumptious “bar” recipes at dinners hosted by the American Legion, listening to his Sven and Ole jokes and talking with him during bus rides to Hines VA Hospital to visit veterans receiving treatment, I really, really was getting to know a very faithful man from Minnesota who loved his family, his country and serving others.
In November 2013, Positively Naperville ran a copy of Lee’s recipe for Pumpkin-Pecan Bars that received raves from readers. The following month we introduced Lee Lindberg’s column titled “Raise the Bar” that featured “Lee’s Cherry Scotchy Bars” with a side note to use Land O Lakes Butter, a “preferred” ingredient that reminded readers of the company where Lee had spent his career.
And for nearly six years, even when Lee traveled to Marco Island for his annual winter vacation or served in a leadership role as Commander of the American Legion, the kind and generous man with a beautiful singing voice met every deadline right on time, even early most months, and many readers told him and us that they clipped out his recipes every month.
Early this year, Lee emailed that he wanted to continue submitting recipes, but that idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis or IPF, a rare and serious lung disease, prevented his passionate pursuit to bake and test new recipes.
Back in March, just after Lee’s 88th birthday, Lee also sent us an email with a story titled “I am a Seenager” that had been forwarded to his email box. We followed Lee’s suggestion to publish the piece in our April issue.
I am a Seenager …
I JUST discovered my age group! I am a Seenager (Senior teenager).
I have everything that I wanted as a teenager, only 70-85 years later.
I don’t have to go to school or work.
I get an allowance every month.
I have my own pad.
I don’t have a curfew.
I have a driver’s license and my own car.
I have ID that gets me into bars and the wine shop. I like the wine shop best.
The people I hang around with are not scared of getting pregnant, they aren’t scared of anything, they have been blessed to live this long, why be scared?
And I don’t have acne. Life is Good!
Also, you will feel much more intelligent after reading this, if you are a Seenager.
Brains of older people are slow because they know so much.
People do not decline mentally with age; it just takes them longer to recall facts because they have more information in their brains.
Scientists believe this also makes you hard of hearing as it puts pressure on your inner ear.
Also, older people often go to another room to get something and when they get there, they stand there wondering what they came for. It is NOT a memory problem; It is nature’s way of making older people do more exercise.
SO THERE!!
I have more friends I should send this to, but right now I can’t remember their names. So please forward this to your friends; they may be my friends, too!
Lee enjoyed telling Sven & Ole jokes for every occasion at the VFW
On June 15, shortly after he submitted his recipe for the July 2019 issue of PN, Lee sent us an Ole and Lena joke. Sunday Wayne Fischer assured me Lee would want us to share a taste of his humorous storytelling with our readers:
Ole was critically ill, having been stricken with a terminal illness. He was back at home, and dying. He knew he was near the end. As he lay suffering in his bed, he caught the aroma of Lena’s freshly baked brownies, of which he was incredibly fond.
Slowly and painfully, he was able to rise and feebly stagger down the hall to the kitchen, where he spied the tray of brownies on the table.
Reaching out to savor a sample, Lena suddenly appeared and ordered “No, you cannot have any!”
Ole replied, “The smell is out of this world, can I not have, just one?” And he again reached out.
Lena slapped his wrist and said “No, I yust baked them speshul dis morning, to be served at da funeral!”
LeRoy R. Lindberg (March 21, 1931 – June 23, 2019)
Visitation
4PM – 8PM Friday, July 12, 2019
Beidelman-Kunsch Funeral Home & Crematory
516 S. Washington Street
Downtown Naperville, IL 60540
10AM – 11AM Saturday, July 13, 2019
Our Saviour’s Evangelical Lutheran Church
815 S. Washington Street
Naperville, IL 60540
Memorial Service
11AM Saturday, July 13, 2019
Our Saviour’s Evangelical Lutheran Church
815 S. Washington Street
Naperville, IL 60540
Update, June 28, 2019 / Lee’s obituary is linked here.
We will always remember the good laughs and fun times with the proud Minnesotan!
—Stephanie Penick