Leo Richard Lake

life story

A Life of Love, Curiosity, and Kindness

Leo was a beloved husband, father, and grandfather, as well as a software engineer and analyst. He was a world traveler, a student of languages, and a choral music aficionado. Above all, he was a loving, kind, and patient human being.

Leo Richard Lake

Leo Richard Lake, 83, of Minneapolis, Minnesota died peacefully at home following complications from brain surgery. He was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1943 to Leo and Marian Lake. He was a curious and bright child who joined the choir at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, which began a life-long love of choral music. He attended Kalamazoo Central High School, where he was a National Merit Scholar finalist and earned a full scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). After graduating from MIT with a B.S. in Physics, he attended graduate school at the University of Minnesota, earning his Ph.D. in Physics. During his graduate school years, he met his future wife Mary Beth Rasey and they married in 1971. Before moving to Heidelberg, Germany, where Leo would complete a postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute, Leo and Mary Beth adopted their eldest daughter, Sara, from South Korea. While in Heidelberg, they welcomed their second daughter, Elizabeth, in 1973. After returning to the United States, Leo took a position at NASA in Hampton Roads, Virginia, and the couple welcomed their son, Bjorn. The family moved to the Twin Cities in 1981, and Leo took a position at Augsburg College, where he helped start their computer science program. Over the course of his career, Leo worked as a software engineer and analyst at various tech companies in the Twin Cities, retiring from FSI International in Chaska in 2009. Leo was a devoted and highly engaged father, cooking for the family, making school lunches, driving his children to school, sporting events and activities, and helping them with their math and science homework. He was also a beloved grandfather teaching Sara’s children to build bonfires on the beach in Michigan and patiently answering their countless science questions. In retirement, he traveled the world with his wife Mary Beth, practicing the languages he’d studied over the years (Russian, German, Spanish, Japanese and Norwegian), and crossing the globe from Seoul, Korea to St. Petersburg, Russia to Machu Picchu, Peru. He also became a member of the Pilgrim Lutheran Church choir and the German American choir, returning to his childhood love of choral music.

Leo was preceded in death by his parents, Leo and Marian Lake and his eldest daughter Sara (John) and is survived by his wife Mary Beth, his children Elizabeth and Bjorn (Tara), his grandchildren Tony Russell and Valerie Russell (Fred), his great grandchild Shay Williams, his sisters Catherine Ellsworth (Jerry) and Ellen Lake, and his nephew Christopher Ellsworth (Annie).

memorial service

Celebration of Life

December 4, 2026

Pilgrim Lutheran Church (ELCA) 1935 St Clair Ave, St Paul, MN 55105, USA

Leo’s celebration of life will be held at Pilgrim Lutheran Church in Saint Paul. The visitation begins at 10:00 AM, followed by a service at 11:00 and a light luncheon at noon.

Funeral/Cremation Provider: Crescent Tide Cremation Services