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THE LOVEBIRDS: Reuben and Shirlee Lenske waltzed at his
100th birthday party. |
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Aug. 11, 1998, was
a perfect day for a wedding, with the mercury hovering in the 80s, and Rabbi
Joshua Stampfer had no particular reason to fret. He had joined together hundreds
of couples in his career, and the ceremony for Reuben Lenske and Shirlee
Leveton promised to be a pleasant if modest affair. The proceedings
took place in the little chapel of Congregation Neveh Shalom on Southwest
Dosch Road. Sheltered by the chuppah, or wedding canopy, the glowing
bride and groom exchanged rings, tossed back the kiddush wine and
ground the glass underfoot. But before the
rabbi could close the deal, there was an unusual interruption. Reuben's son
from a previous marriage, Moshe Lenske, jumped to his feet to protest. "I object to
this wedding," Moshe declared. His father, he said, didn't understand
what he was getting himself into. The rabbi was
taken aback. In 50 years of tying knots, he'd never seen anything like this.
But Reuben Lenske didn't bat an eye. "Sit down,
Moshe," he snapped. "I know what I'm doing." It's not hard to
imagine what was running through Moshe's mind. His father was a
multimillionaire. He was 99 years old. And he was marrying his secretary. In any case, Stampfer
overruled Moshe's objection. "I'm not a psychiatrist or a psychologist,
but Reuben seemed to be as competent as anybody I ever met," Stampfer
recalled later. "So I'm not going to refuse to marry them because of his
age." Reuben Lenske died
a year ago, at the age of 102. He played many contradictory roles during his
long and colorful career. An outspoken civil-rights lawyer, he was tarred as
a communist during the McCarthy era. Paradoxically, he also built a sprawling
real-estate empire comprising hundreds of run-down rentals, and he frequently
tangled with city inspectors. He raised cattle, felled lumber and blasted
rock from the earth. He wrote hundreds of letters to the editor. "He was
clear, he was concise, he was critical, but he was constructive," says
former Oregonian editorial-page editor Bob Landauer. "Whether it
was fighting for the rights of the persecuted or the defenseless, Reuben
always took on their causes as his own," declared U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden in
a eulogy. "He was willing to stand up and speak out for them when others
kept silent." But of all the
controversies that surrounded his life, none was as bitter as the one that
followed his death. When his last will
and testament was unveiled, his children discovered to their horror that he
had signed away control of the vast majority of his estate, worth an
estimated $20 million, to his new bride, Shirlee--a sultry temptress of 73. "I was
absolutely shocked," said one longtime friend of the family. "I
never thought this would happen." Three months after
Lenske died, two of his three children, Moshe Lenske, 77, and Judy Temko, 75,
sued Shirlee, claiming that their father suffered from a "weakened
mental state" and that she "contrived and schemed" to write
them out of his will. "Shirlee
Lenske was able to take control of his mind and actions," the children
argued, "to the extent that he would do whatever she suggested he
do." Shirlee
categorically rejects the suggestion that she is Oregon's answer to Anna
Nicole Smith. "Anybody that knew Reuben knew that when he made his mind
up...you could stand on your head, and you could not make him change his
mind," she told WW. "It was his decision. Period!" Lenske's children
declined to speak to WW about the suit. But interviews, court filings
and public records reveal a painful feud over the legacy of a man who was
utterly devoted to his family, but whose final wishes tore that family apart.
• Without question,
Reuben Lenske was one of Portland's most fascinating public figures. Born in
1899 in the Russian town of Gomel (now in Belarus), the youngest of seven
brothers, he emigrated with his family to Wisconsin, where his father peddled
dry goods in a horse-drawn buggy. When he was 6 years old, Lenske lost two
toes to a La Crosse streetcar. Despite this handicap, he became a champion
featherweight boxer in high school, and he was the first in his family to go
to college. He graduated from the University of Minnesota law school in 1924,
married Rose Mirviss, moved to Portland and set up shop as a lawyer. Over the next 50
years, Lenske gained notoriety for three different reasons: his willingness
to tackle unpopular causes, his running battle with the U.S. government over
alleged tax evasion, and his sprawling property holdings. Lenske was never
one to shy from the spotlight. In 1949, he defended a group of merchants
accused of illegally selling horsemeat. In 1954, he defended Herbert Simpson,
a truck driver who was charged with communism, before the House Un-American
Activities Committee, which held its inquisition at the unlikely venue of
Reed College. But the most
sensational case of his career was the probably the trial of William Mackie,
a housepainter and World War II veteran who was charged in 1960 with
"membership of a subversive organization." Although Mackie had
lived virtually his entire life in Portland, his family had emigrated from
Finland when he was 8 months old, and federal authorities tried to deport
him. Lenske fought the case all the way up to the Supreme Court but lost on a
5-4 vote. Lenske's defense
of accused communists--combined with letters to the editor criticizing U.S.
policy toward Cuba, Laos and China--came back to haunt him. In 1959, spurred
by a secret FBI dossier on his alleged communist sympathies, the Internal
Revenue Service launched a lengthy probe into his affairs. Five years, 359
witnesses and two judges later (the first died of a heart attack), Lenske was
convicted of tax evasion to the tune of $6,000 and sentenced to two years in
jail. In 1967, however,
the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the verdict. "This court will not
place its stamp of approval on a witch-hunt, a crusade to rid society of
unorthodox thinkers and actors, by using federal income-tax laws and federal
courts to put such people in the penitentiary," thundered Judge J.
Warren Madden. For an accused
communist, Lenske was a ravenous speculator, snapping up houses, apartments,
farmland, timberland and herds of cattle. "He was pretty sharp,"
says business associate Raymond Smith. By the mid-'80s,
Lenske owned as many as 300 houses--most of them low-income rentals in
Southeast Portland. One city housing inspector remembers driving out to a
Lenske property on a bleak stretch of Southeast Powell Boulevard in the dead
of winter. The house itself had been demolished, but there was a stand-alone
garage with a tarp slung over the door. Inside, he discovered a young couple
from Idaho who were living there with a baby, free of charge, courtesy of
Reuben Lenske. "I drove over
to his office, and Reuben looked me in the eye, and he said, 'Do you want me
to make these people homeless?'" the inspector recalls. "For a guy
like that, a guy who had been born in 1899, and lived through the Depression,
giving someone a roof over their head--even a garage with a tarp--was an act
of charity." Lenske also gave
generously to conventional charities, including $100,000 to the Jewish
National Fund and $50,000 of property to the Albina Ministerial Alliance. But
despite his enormous wealth, he lived simply. He never smoked, never drank
and never drove a new car. "He was a gentleman's gentleman," says
former tenant Taud Coffman, who grew close to Lenske in his later years.
"You never knew he was wealthy. It wasn't something he flaunted." Friday-night
dinner at the Lenskes was a neighborhood institution. The Lenskes' children
and later their grandchildren, plus assorted friends, neighbors, visitors and
orbiting Reedies, descended on the modest Eastmoreland home to discuss the
issues of the day over a crackling fire and Rose's blintzes. When Rose died, in
1986, many people expected Lenske to slow down. On the contrary, he stayed
busier than ever, showing up at the office every day in a tweed Cotswold cap.
And at his elbow there appeared, with ever-greater frequency, a vivacious,
brown-eyed widow named Shirlee Leveton. • From her pearl
earrings to her white thatch of curls to the mischievous twinkle in her eye,
Shirlee Lenske is the grandmother of Jewish grandmothers. Her desk groans
with knickknacks, including a teddy bear, a frilly pillow and a notice
warning, "CAUTION: This Office Protected by Attack Receptionist."
She runs around in an enormous Cadillac, and her speech is coated in
"honey" and "sweetheart." Meet her and you want to hug
her. Shirlee presides
over her late husband's empire from the cozy offices of Lenske Properties on
Southeast 52nd Avenue, across from the Loyal Order of Moose Lodge 291. She
insists on serving a reporter a cup of tea and seating him at Lenske's own
desk, which sports a snapshot of the couple with Sen. Wyden. "There's a
lot of energy in that chair!" she exclaims. Ask her about
Lenske, and the adjectives spill out of her. "He was a really brilliant,
sweet, gorgeous guy," she says. "He would do anything for anybody
at any time. He was very giving and generous. "He was as
sharp as anyone could be," she continues. "People used to tell him,
'I wish I had your mental abilities.' He'd say, 'I chop wood, run instead of
walk, and I get lots of oxygen to the brain. That's what keeps your brain
active, you know: oxygen.'" Originally from
Minneapolis, Shirlee moved to Portland in the 1950s. Her first husband died
of Lou Gehrig's disease, leaving her with three sons. Later, she married one
of Lenske's business partners, William Leveton; they were divorced in 1982. Shirlee went to
work for Lenske after Rose's death. At first, her duties were confined to the
office, but her portfolio quickly expanded. When Lenske quit driving, she
became his de facto chauffeur. Then one day, Lenske confessed that he'd been
keeping a baked salmon in the oven at his house and snacking on it for days.
"When Shirlee discovered he'd been leaving it in the oven for a whole
week, she realized someone had to do something," says family friend Jean
Miller. By the late '80s,
Shirlee was much more than a "Gal Friday." She helped Lenske around
the house. She orchestrated the Friday-night dinners. She moved in--and slept
in the same bed. (Asked if she was intimate with Lenske, Shirlee did not
answer directly. "We were together many years," she said with a
smile.) "She took
care of him," says one person familiar with the situation. "She was
his office manager, chauffeur, cook, lover--everything a 90-year-old man
could want." Shirlee describes
their relationship as a natural "evolution" for two lonely people
in the twilight of their years. But others see a darker motivation. "She
moved in on Reuben within months of Rose's dying," says a source close
to the family. "She had a target and moved in on it in a very cold and
methodical way." By most accounts,
the Lenske clan was close-knit. The eldest son, Moshe, lives in a modest
bungalow a dozen blocks from the home where he grew up. A retired businessman
(he made stuffed animals) and an active Reed alum, he is a stalwart in the
local Democratic Party and drives a battered old Volvo. The middle daughter,
Judy Temko, lives in Santa Rosa, Calif., with her husband, Philip, a Plato
scholar. The youngest son, Aryay, is a carpenter, violinist and expert
Scrabble player who lives in Humboldt County, Calif. None of the three
siblings would speak to WW about the lawsuit, but friends say the
family doted on their patriarch. "His children, his grandchildren and
his great-grandchildren were all devoted to him, and they loved him and they
were attentive to him," says one family friend. Friends say the
family shrugged off Shirlee's vacations to New York, Florida and Paris; they
chuckled over her new Cadillac. But the jokes went flat in 1998, when the
lovebirds got married. Lenske was
apparently thrilled. "He would beam like a teenager and introduce us to
his 'new bride,' says Gail Shelton, who works at Lenske Properties as a
bookkeeper. "He was very, very happy." "Reuben was
an old-fashioned Jewish man who felt marriage was very, very important,"
Shirlee says. "Over the years he brought it up several times. One day,
he said, 'We're gonna go get a marriage license,' and I said, 'OK'...and
tears came out of his eyes." In July 1999,
Lenske threw a huge party to mark his 100th birthday. Three hundred friends
and relatives from across the country descended on the Hilton Hotel, where
Shirlee and Lenske waltzed to the strains of Die Fledermaus. But
beneath the surface, relations between Shirlee and the children were frayed.
"The tension intensified after the wedding," said one family
friend. "You could see that." By last year,
Lenske was clearly losing his grip. He quit chopping wood. He quit going into
the office. Taud Coffman used to keep him company, playing old Jewish folk
tunes on the piano while Lenske dozed beside the fire. On Nov. 15, 2001, the
inevitable finally happened: Lenske died in his sleep. If the emotional
temperature between Shirlee and the children was chilly before Lenske's
death, it plunged into the arctic afterwards. Unveiled within five days after
his demise, Lenske's last will and testament turned over control of his
entire estate to Shirlee. You can still hear
the after-echoes of the shock when you talk to certain family friends.
"She gave 15 of her best years to him faithfully," says one.
"But she didn't earn it all." The case of Lenske
vs. Lenske will probably take years to grind through the court system,
but its outcome will turn on two key questions. Was Reuben sound of mind when
he signed his will? And did he sign it under pressure? Lenske's will, which
runs to 17 pages, was signed May 3, 2000, shortly before his 101st birthday.
In their lawsuit, the children claim that Reuben began to show signs of
mental deterioration in 1995. By the time he signed his will, they argue, he
was no longer capable of managing his complex business holdings, which
increasingly came under Shirlee's sway. Several friends
insist he was sharp as a tack until the very end. "There was nothing
wrong with his mind, nothing," says Coffman, who played the piano at
Lenske's birthday parties. "He was as bright as a hundred-watt
bulb." "I can
remember his 99th birthday," says "No-Fault" Walt Pelett, the
owner of City Liquidators. "The guy was clear as a bell." Others disagree.
"By the age of 100, he was not all there," says one friend.
"Sometimes he would play with words, to stall for time, so he could
figure out who you were--he was very clever. I remember a gathering where he
told us an old story about his college days. Then, five minutes later, he
told it again! We all smiled like we'd never heard it before. Nobody wanted
to say anything, but there was definitely diminished capacity." "He
practically lost his mind the last two years," says another longtime
friend. "He was terrible for everyone. They had one caregiver after
another. It really commenced before she persuaded him to marry her. He was
not of clear mind. He repeated himself all the time. He'd say, 'Shalom! Do
you know what that means? Do you?' He'd say that to everyone." This friend
relates one episode when Lenske threw a pillow on the fire at home, perhaps
mistaking it for kindling. "He scared everybody," she says.
"It's a wonder the house didn't burn down." It's not uncommon
for old people to wander in and out of lucidity. Even if Lenske was sometimes
confused before he signed the will, he may very well have been clear when
he signed it--as Shirlee's lawyers will doubtless claim. The children have
another legal argument, however: They contend that Shirlee bullied Lenske
with the one threat the old man would not dare ignore--the threat of leaving
him all alone. This argument,
known to legal beagles as "undue influence," carries considerable
force if it can be substantiated. If a court decides the final will was
signed under emotional blackmail, it would resurrect Lenske's previous
will--handing control of the estate back to the children. Several friends
reject the idea that Lenske was under Shirlee's thumb. "I don't think
anybody could have talked Reuben into anything he didn't want to do,"
says Jean Miller. "You know,
Frank Sinatra said, 'I did it my way,' but Reuben said it a long time before
that," says another family friend. "When he made his mind up, you
couldn't change it." "I never saw
anything at the parties, at the office, at their house, that was anything but
kindness," says Coffman. "She was never demanding or pushy with Mr.
Lenske. Nothing. Nothing." But others say
Shirlee came to dominate Lenske in his later years. "She made all the
decisions--where to go and what to do," says a family friend. "He
was less and less in control, I would say." • It would be
foolish to predict the outcome of such a complex dispute, but experts say
that most wills in Oregon survive legal challenges. "The majority of
these cases are thrown out," says Portland probate lawyer Richard
Pagnano. In fact, the
children appear to be willing to cede Shirlee half the estate. Their lawsuit
demands only $6,666,666, or two-thirds of half of the estimated value of
Lenske's holdings. (Lenske's third son, Aryay, is not a party to the dispute.)
Whoever winds up
with the cash, however, the lawsuit has clearly put the Lenskes under
enormous strain. The Friday-night dinners are a thing of the past. The
chances of a nice, friendly Thanksgiving feast look slender, to say the
least. "I miss the great-grandkids," Shirlee confesses. "It's
hard. But they'll come home when this is all over." If you want to see
Shirlee Lenske as a generous soul who gave comfort and joy to a lonely old
man, you'll certainly find plenty of evidence, from the 15 years she spent
with him to the dozens of photos and tributes that make her office seem like
a monument to her husband. At the same time,
those who wonder if her motives were more complex may see a clue glinting in
a horoscope item from July 31, 2002, tacked to the wall above her desk. "ARIES:
Despite delay, you are going to be a big winner," it reads.
"Intuitive intellect serves as reliable guide. You will be at right
place at critical moment." Originally published IN
WILLAMETTE WEEK 11/20/2002 Find this story at www.wweek.com/story.php?story=3358 |
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