Dr. Jack Lasersohn Approached All Joys Of Life With Equal Vigor

He was one of those people who when you asked his family and friends what he enjoyed most, the answer would boil down to something like everything.

Dr. Jack T. Lasersohn a pathologist and 30-year resident of Mercer Island, loved what he did and did what he loved, according to his wife of 37 years and his four children.

He had a passion for work, family, friends, the Northwest and everything related to water: boating, fishing, whale-watching, wind-surfing, jet-skiing.

Family members said he carried this passion till the end. He died at home last Friday after a brief bout with cancer. He was 60.

A memorial service will be held tomorrow, Jan. 16, at 1 p.m. at the Congregational Church of Mercer Island, 4545 Island Crest Way S.E.

"He was famous (to Lake Washington regulars) for riding his jet ski, be-bopping around the lake and riding the waves," said daughter Jill Lasersohn Nuss of Federal Way. "He didn't look or act 60."

He approached his work with equal vigor.

For almost two decades he worked at Eastside Pathology, Inc., in Redmond, and more recently volunteered at Beacon House in Seattle, an AIDS hospice.

He had served as Director of Pathology at Valley Medical Center, and president of Eastside Pathology and Eastside Medical Laboratory. He had worked at Northwest Hospital and Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle. He also had taught at the University of Washington.

Dr. Robert Glowitz said his colleague enjoyed talking to people in the office, and people enjoyed talking to him. "He was a very easy person to be around," Glowitz said.

Dr. Lasersohn kept a jar of peppermint and butterscotch candy on his desk, an open invitation for any passer-by to stop, pick up a candy and chat, said Glowitz, adding that his colleague was "an interesting combination of qualities. He was outgoing but not loud. People liked him. He will be missed."

Friends and family were shocked by how quickly the cancer overtook him. He was diagnosed with the illness Dec. 28 and died 12 days later. Those who knew about his condition were awed by his extraordinary strength during his last days.

Four days before he died, he went to his office to take care of some business. He did not tell his co-workers the gravity of his condition. "I'm certain he realized the seriousness of his own illness because of the nature of his work," said Glowitz.

And yet at the office that day, "He was as he usually was, very upbeat and hopeful."

That same night he took his family out to dinner.

"That's just the way he was," said his wife, Joan.

It was a quality she observed nearly 40 years earlier, while she and Dr. Lasersohn attended Washington University in St. Louis, Mo.

Born and raised in Harrisburg, Ill., Dr. Lasersohn was graduated from the University of Illinois College of Medicine. He was a resident at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., where he eventually served as a Lt. Commander in the Public Health Service.

In 1963, Dr. Lasersohn and his family moved to the Northwest so he could teach at the U.W. "We didn't know anything about Seattle. We heard it rained a lot," said Joan Lasersohn.

Little did she know that her husband would become a quintessential Northwest man, enamored with the water that surrounded his Mercer Island home and the scenic views all around.

"He never ceased enjoying Mount Rainier," she said.

Besides his wife, survivors are daughter Jill and husband Rodney Nuss; three sons, Jeffrey Lasersohn of Sherwood, Ore.; John Lasersohn of Santa Clara; and James Lasersohn of Seattle, two sisters, Jane Tuttle of Harrisburg, Ill., and Jill Lasersohn Dangerfield of Lakewood, Ohio, and by his mother Hannah Thomas Lee of Harrisburg.

Memorials may be sent to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, 1124 Columbia St., Seattle, 98104, or the Northwest AIDS Foundation, 127 Broadway E., Suite 200, Seattle, 98102.