What’s up with THAT NAME?

It’s “Lees” (rhymes with “cheese”)

not ‘lies” (rhymes with “flies”)

Q:  Who even has a name like that?

A:  The surname came from Luxembourg, a small country bordered by France, Belgium and Germany.  Pretty much everyone in the U.S. with this last name is related, if you go back five generations or so.  My great-great-great-something grandfather came over from Luxembourg in 1852 with his family to New York aboard a ship called Centurion, in the days before the Castle Garden and Ellis Island immigration centers existed. Had they come later, the name might well have been changed by Ellis Island transcribers to “Lees.” Because of how it looks, that name has meant that nobody in the family can ever go into politics.

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