L. R. Micklesen

[Susanna J Westen]

The Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures at the University of Washington grieves the passing of Professor Emeritus Lew Reid Micklesen on June 21, 2012 at age 91.  After earning a BS from the University of Minnesota’s College of Pharmacy in 1942, he began graduate study in pharmaceutical and organic chemistry.  In the winter of 1944, after being refused further deferments by the draft board, he applied to the Navy for foreign language study in Boulder, Colorado and was assigned to study Russian.  He eventually ended up at the Naval Academy, where he taught Russian and Spanish from March 1945 to July 1946.  After the war he entered graduate school at Harvard, earning a PhD in comparative philology in 1951.  After teaching elsewhere for a couple of years, he began his UW teaching career in 1953, as an Assistant Professor of Far Eastern and Slavic Languages and Literature; he retired 
in 1991.  Most of Professor Micklesen’s scholarly work was in the area of Indo-European accentology; he spent a number of years investigating the accentual systems of the Slavic and Baltic languages, later applying the results of his investigations to Ancient Greek.  Following retirement he remained active with his interests in philately, rock gardening, attending Medical Grand Rounds at the UW Medical Center, adding new languages to his repertoire and continuing to conduct research until a stroke in March of this year.

Professor Micklesen is survived by wife Jane, whom he married in 1950, as well as three children, seven grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.

Susanna J. ("Shosh") Westen
Administrator / Graduate Program Advisor
University of Washington
Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures
Box 353580
Seattle, WA  98195-3580
206-543-6848 / 206-543-6009 (FAX)
http://depts.washington.edu/slavweb




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