Lee V. Warren

Lee Warren of Pacific Grove passed peacefully at the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula on Monday, April 27, 2015 after a very brief illness. Mr. Warren was born in Sao Paulo City, Brazil, but moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA where he earned a B.A. specializing in foreign languages.

After moving to the Monterey Peninsula in 1963, he became an instructor of Spanish and Portuguese at the Defense Language Institute where he remained until his retirement in 1994.

In his retirement years, Mr. Warren devoted his talents and energies to the very rewarding volunteer programs at Community Hospital. He worked at the Telecare Department, responsible for calling the elderly homebound, and also at the Tyler Heart Institute. He continued his volunteer work at the hospital for twenty two years, never missing even one day’s assignment.

During his recent hospital stay, he was treated with the medical expertise of Dr. Mikko Helenius and Dr. Alejandro Centurion as well as the infinite kindness and compassion of a very capable and caring nursing staff.

Lee Warren will be remembered as a gracious gentleman who lived his life with quiet dignity. He was an inspiration to those who knew him well. He will be missed, but not forgotten.

A private celebration of Lee Warren’s life will be held at a later date.

The Chambered Nautilus

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,

Sails the unshadowed main,—

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings

In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,

And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;

Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,

As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,

Before thee lies revealed,—

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,

Stole with soft step its shining archway through,

Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap, forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born

Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:—

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!

~Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes