Lesley Damisch Obituary (1946 - 2025)

Lesley Friedsam Damisch, a self-described troublemaker and the first woman to anchor the news in the Tampa Bay Area, died at the age of 79 on October 5th in Tampa, Florida. She is survived by her very loving husband, Peter; her much-loved sister, Rita; her baby lawyer mentee, Priyanka; as well as numerous friends and family members. Born in New York on April 18, 1946, to native Floridian Frances Benjamin and Franz Friedsam from Munich, Germany, Lesley grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. While in college in Washington, D.C., she worked for her hometown Congressman and edited a TB Association clean air newsletter. Lesley earned a Journalism degree from American University in 1967. During a short marriage, Lesley lived in Germany, where she taught reading to G.I. draftees and ran a recreation program for Army children. Back in the States, in 1972, she became a television news reporter and the first woman to anchor the news in the Tampa Bay market. Law school came next: first a J.D. from FSU Law in 1982, then an LL.M. from Yale in 1983. Enthralled by legal theory, Lesley wanted to be a law professor—her law teaching came later. While at FSU Law, she was a research assistant for two professors, helped edit a monthly preview of Florida Supreme Court cases, and taught legal research and writing. She returned to Tampa, representing both pro bono legal services clients and Tampa's elite in high-conflict, contested divorce cases. To escape trial work, Lesley traveled—Namibia, Papua New Guinea, Galápagos. She also found time to run the New York Marathon, take up downhill skiing, and learn to pilot a plane. She was one of the founders of Tampa’s Rape Crisis Center and The Spring, a refuge for domestic violence victims. She wrote numerous magazine articles and law review scholarly works. The gravitational pull of Lesley's life beyond journalism and the law was Antarctica. A first trip led to a second, where she met her future husband, Peter, a retired U.S. Navy Captain and former CEO, who owned a sailing school in Marina Del Rey, California. Lesley and Peter legally married where they met—at the Antarctic gravesite of Sir Ernest Shackleton in Grytviken, South Georgia Island. The New York Times featured their wedding and marriage in 2006 and 2021. Together, they made more than a dozen pilgrimages back to Antarctica, the last being to the Ross Sea in 2024. On their exact eighteenth anniversary, they stepped into Shackleton's 1907 hut at Cape Royds. In retirement, Lesley finally became a law professor, albeit for a class of one or two. She mentored college students into law school by teaching the legal process using a torts casebook, Socratically questioning her mentees. Lesley traveled with her expedition guide husband to more than 90 countries. She also deeply enjoyed butterfly and native plant gardening. Lesley was a friend to all animals, especially cats. Lesley's ashes will be scattered on her beloved South Georgia Island in the Antarctic, among the elephant seals, king penguins, and wandering albatross.