Alice Kathleen Leuchtag

On March 24, 2020, death came to Alice Leuchtag, freeing her from chronic pain. The only child of Geraldine and Maurice Kesner, she was born in Los Angeles on April 22, 1933, into Depression poverty.

A chess prodigy at age seven, she won games at the Hollywood Chess Club. During high school in Boston, she won a Massachusetts essay contest on “I Speak for Democracy,” which she read on a radio broadcast. A poet, she published poems in Seventeen and Voices International. At UCLA she earned a bachelor’s degree in Sociology.

During graduate studies she met H. Richard Leuchtag, to whom she was to be married for 65 years. She encouraged him to study Biophysics while she studied Experimental Psychology, so they could collaborate on common problems. They dedicated their lives to science and to working people. During the 1957 harvest season they picked fruit alongside migrant farm workers, sending reports under pen names George and Marie Coulter to the West Coast weekly, Peoples World. Alice wrote a founding document draft for the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee. She drove a cab in Oakland.

On a visit to revolutionary Cuba, Alice and Richard learned that rural children were given shoes to protect them from parasitic worms. They saw new housing developments, the literacy campaign “Each one teach one” and many other advances. On their return she wrote a letter to President John F. Kennedy reporting her findings, asking for Cuba to be left in peace.

They settled in Alhambra, California, where Alice worked as a social worker and probation attendant. In San Diego their son, Clyde Raymond Leuchtag, was born. Clyde was to become a lawyer and Harris County Judge. Clyde gave Alice and Richard five grandchildren, Jeremy, Joshua, Ilana, Leonel and Rodriga. Jeremy and Amy’s Jeremy Junior and Joseph became their great-grandchildren.

Alice earned a Master’s degree in Sociology from San Diego State College. In Indianapolis, Alice published a column, “The Bridge,” in the Indianapolis Grassroots. Her work as college instructor, rehabilitation counselor and writer supported the family while Richard completed his doctoral thesis. As a community education specialist in New York, Alice organized activities for diabetics under the slogan, “It’s up to you.”

They moved to Galveston, where she worked at Shriners Burns Hospital. She carried out a research study with Mary Knudson-Cooper on “The stress of a family move as a precipitating factor in children’s burn accidents,” which was published in the Journal of Human Stress. Alice’s writings have also appeared in The Humanist, Z Magazine and Free Inquiry. In Houston, Alice joined Humanists of Houston and became its President. With Bernadine Williams and Lilian Care, she organized Women against Global Trafficking in the early 1990s.

After retiring to the Texas Hill Country, Alice and Richard joined the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Kerrville, where Alice became Vice President. She was active in the Bernie Sanders 2016 Presidential campaign and helped organize Hill Country Progressives. Alice gave annual talks on “Women who Changed the World” in March, Women’s History Month. Her last talk, on Eleanor Roosevelt, was presented to the American Association of University Women during Alice’s illness by her friend Shirley Meckley.

Alice played the guitar, singing folk and progressive songs, some of which she wrote herself. In addition to her own Facebook page, she managed a page for the Hill Country Progressives. If you feel moved to do so, please send a contribution to the Rosenberg Fund for Children (www.rfc.org) in her memory.

Alice will be missed by cousin Nicole Zweck Cocuzza and her daughter Christina Zweck, cousins-in-law Ben Sachs and Dan Sachs, H. Richard Leuchtag, Clyde and Cindy Leuchtag, Rodriga Avila, Leo Avila, Jeremy, Amy, Jeremy Jr. and Joseph Leuchtag, Josh Leuchtag, Ilana Elizabeth Leuchtag and Ilana’s fiancé Greg Gardner, Carla Chaney Tipps, Penny McLanahan Leuchtag, Vladimir Bystrov, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship members, and many other friends.