Laurus Waldemar Lehwalder
TEMPE – Laurus Waldemar Lehwalder of Tempe, Arizona passed away on June 5, 2018. He was born the tenth child of Arthur Richard Wilhelm and Florence Mildred (Christen) Lehwalder on April 23, 1930 in Butte, Montana.
He was a child of Montana, exploring and hiking the Highlands until he left home to attend Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. Following graduation he served in the U.S. Navy (1952-1955) as an operations officer on the USS Magoffin. He was in Danang and Saigon just after the French were defeated, and took part in refugee evacuations from the north after Vietnam was partitioned.
Laurus attended Columbia University Medical School, where he met Marilyn Rockwood; they married on April 1, 1958. After he obtained his M.D., he and his family lived in Dahlgren, Virginia, then moved to Hanover while he completed his residency at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston. After a short time in Quincy, Illinois the family settled in Missoula, Montana where Laurus opened the ophthalmology practice he would own until his retirement.
Soon after the move back to Montana, the family built their cabin retreat in the Flint Creek Range, which gave Laurus numerous ways to be active and innovative. He was a tinkerer, amateur radio operator, a rockhound and gem faceter, a camper, hiker/explorer (“it’s just over that hill”), an optimist (“it’s clearing in the West!”), a voracious reader, and a clear thinker even in the end. He and Marilyn traveled extensively before seeking out the Arizona warmth during those cold Montana winters. Yet though he transitioned to Arizona in his later years, his family will always remember him in Montana.
Laurus is survived by: his spouse, Marilyn (Rockwood) Lehwalder; his children, Laurie (Dennis) Higgins, Melanie (Mike) Postich, and David (Carol Hausauer) Lehwalder; by three grandchildren, Derek Loens (Jenna) Higgins, William Lehwalder (Elizabeth) Higgins, and Sydney Leigh Higgins; by three great-grandchildren, Finleigh Lehwalder Higgins, Dylan John Higgins, and Hayes Laurus Higgins; and by numerous nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents and all of his siblings - Philip Heine Lehwalder, Margaret Jane Clemons, Barbara Christen Berry, Arthur Robert Lehwalder, Phoebe Ferris Bee, David Christen Lehwalder, Ruth Elizabeth Fechter, Marcus Matthias Lehwalder (age 12), and Daphne Arthrice Lehwalder (infancy) - who have welcomed him into their waiting arms. Celebration of Life is to be held in Tempe for friends and family.