Uploaded: Friday, November 14, 2003, 9:40 a.m.

Richard (Dick) Lee, M.D., dies at 85
Eldest son of Palo Alto Medical Clinic founder Russel V.A. Lee succumbs to leukemia after a life in medicine and sports-car racing

by Jay Thorwaldson

Richard Stanford "Dick" Lee, a longtime obstetrician/gynecologist at the Palo Alto Medical Clinic and eldest son of Clinic founder Russel Van Arsdale Lee, died Nov. 9 at 85 of leukemia.

Dr. Lee during his medical career delivered babies for generations of Palo Alto area mothers and was well-loved by his patients, his son, Rich Lee, M.D., a family practice physician at the Stanford Health Service, recalled.

But Dr. Lee's twin passion for most of his life was racing Porsche sports cars. In later years he actively worked to improve racing safety and provided medical services at races in Laguna Seca near Monterey, Sears Point in the North Bay and other race tracks -- becoming known as the inventor of the racing safety harness (adapted from his flying experiences during World War II).

Memorial services will be held Tuesday, Nov. 25 at 1:30 p.m. p.m. at the Stanford Memorial Church, with the Rev. Scotty McLennan officiating.

He is survived by his three brothers, all physicians: Peter Lee of Los Angeles; Philip R. Lee of Palo Alto; and Hewlett Lee of Portola Valley. A sister, Margo Paulsen, M.D., died in 1973 -- she was the wife of the late James Paulsen, a psychiatrist at the Clinic for many years.

The Lee family made its mark on the Palo Alto region in 1924, when Russel Lee moved from San Francisco to Palo Alto and joined the medical practice of Dr. Tom Williams. On Dr. Williams retirement, he formed a series of partnerships that ultimately became the Palo Alto Clinic -- one of the first non-specialty group medical practices in the nation.

Dick Lee was raised in a house built by his father at 440 Gerona Road, Stanford, and survived a bout of polio as a young child that left him with a slight limp made worse later in life from vehicle accidents and a hip replacement. He attended one of the first classes of Peninsula School in Menlo Park. Russel Lee died in 1982.

Dick attended Palo Alto High School, then briefly Pomona College in Southern California, from which he flunked out and moved to Westminster College in Spanish Fork, Utah, his father's native town, where he earned a college letter in swimming. He also attended the University of Michigan for a quarter.

He received his M.D. in 1944 from the Stanford School of Medicine, then in San Francisco. He did his OB/gyn residency at San Francisco General Hospital and Kaiser Permanente.

During World War II, Dick and Peter joined the Army and Philip and Hewlett joined the Navy, all serving as medical officers -- Dick at the Hamilton Air Base of the U.S. Army Air Corps before it became the Air Force. He was stationed in the Philippines and in Korea, and ultimately became a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserves -- he was called up during the Korean War and, briefly, during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1963.

After two unsuccessful early marriages, he married Louise Tower, a nurse he met at Hamilton Air Base. He and "Lou" had a close companionship until her death in 1999. They had four children, Russel, Patty (who died in 1995), Rich and Peter.

During his medical career, he took an active interest in the needs of pregnant teens and unwed mothers.

"He was vocal about contraception to the point of generating controversy," Rich Lee recalled. "He would rather prevent pregnancies than see abortions -- before abortion was legalized." The Lees also took a series of girls into their home until they delivered and decided either to keep the baby or put it up for adoption.

Dick Lee's love of speed began as a youth, when he took up racing his Indian motorcycle around a dirt track at the Stanford Stadium -- and once got caught riding it across the Stanford Golf Course. He also was an avid flyer.

He regularly raced from 1958 to 1973, when he shifted to providing medical services for race drivers. He was named regional director and later national medical director for the Sports Car Club of America. In 1966, he was severely injured when he was instructing a student race driver at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds, and the car went out of control and hit a large concrete barrier. He also had broken a leg in a motorcycle accident at the Lee compound, passing it off for years to family members as a bicycle accident.

In both medicine and racing, "he had a mischievous sense of humor, and was not afraid to use it," Rich recalled -- citing the time his father showed up in a Harpo Marx wig with a bulb-horn after a nurse admonished him that there should be "no clowning around here."