Join us to celebrate the life and legacy of Lee A. Carty. We will hold the memorial on Friday, February 13, 2:00pm at St. Alban's Nourse Hall in Washington, DC.
DIRECTIONS: 3001 Wisconsin Ave, NW, Nourse Hall • Washington, DC 20016
St. Alban’s is located next to the Washington National Cathedral at the corner of Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues. Go under the arch at Lych Gate Road. Enter through red doors immediately on the LEFT (St. Alban's Parish). Nourse Hall will be on the left.
PARKING: Parking is available (for a fee) in the underground garage at the National Cathedral. You may also park on neighborhood streets.
Open House to Share and Remember
You are also invited to drop by the home of Lee and her husband of 61 years, Winthrop P. Carty, who passed away on October 10, 2014, to share among friends and family.
The dates and times are:
4:00 – 7:00pm, Friday, February 13
10am – 1pm, Saturday, February 14
Lee Carty, an influential force in Washington, DC political and civic life across three decades, died on December 26th of complications from lung cancer.
Lee Carty was born in New York City to Samuel W. Anderson, a banker who served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce in the Eisenhower Administration, and Lorraine Combs Anderson, a graphic artist. Her childhood was divided between a farmhouse in Huntington, Long Island, her grandmother’s artists’ community in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and Washington DC. She attended Smith College.
After marrying Winthrop Peirce Carty in 1954 in New York, the couple moved to Bogotá, Colombia, where Lee worked as a freelance reporter for the New York Times. Shortly upon returning to the US in 1962, the couple landed in Washington where Lee continued her work in communications, first as Communications Director of the National Cathedral and mostly notably as Director of Publications for Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, the nation’s leading civil rights organization for children and adults with mental illness and intellectual disabilities. Lee joined the Center in the mid 1970’s as the new organization pioneered legal strategies on behalf of thousands of people who previously had been “warehoused” in institutions without adequate treatment. Lee retired from Bazelon in 2011 after four decades.
In response to the surge in homelessness in Washington DC as in elsewhere in the nation, Lee helped found Friendship Place (then known as Community Council for the Homeless), increasingly recognized nationally for its innovations in addressing the causes and consequences of homelessness. She later served on the organization’s board for over 10 years, and was honored in 2002 with the organization's Benjamin E. Cooper Award for volunteer service. Lee also helped launch the Green Door, a DC program that helps people with mental illness make a successful transition from confinement in an institution to life in the community.
In politics, she was a leading Democratic organizer in the Washington DC, especially in Ward 3 and she served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1972. Lee was a close friend and loyal political aide to DC City Council member Polly Shackleton. She was communications director in Council Member James Nathanson's three campaigns and a key supporter of Sterling Tucker’s unsuccessful mayoral bid in 1978 against Marion Barry.
A gourmet cook, Lee Carty’s cuisine ranged from Boeuf Bourguignon to fiery Mexican Mole Poblano. Lee and her late husband enjoyed Washington DC sports and culture to the fullest. They were season ticket holders of the Caps Hockey team since the 1980s, avid fans of both the Senators and Nationals baseball teams, and regulars at the Arena Stage and Shakespeare Theater.
Lee is survived by a son, Winthrop Carty of Cambridge, MA, daughters Jane MacNealy of Silver Spring, MD and Elizabeth Carty of El Cerrito, CA, and five grandchildren. The family is planning a memorial to be held in February. Her brother, Michael Anderson died in 2001 and her husband of 61 years, the journalist Winthrop Peirce Carty, died October 10, 2014.
Donations in her memory can be made to Friendship Place at FriendshipPlace.org or to the GALA Hispanic Theater at galatheatre.org.
