Lee Somerville

Elisabeth “Lee” Somerville

July 15, 1943 – July 24, 2026

Lee Somerville died peacefully in her San Diego home on Friday, July 24th, 2026, nine days after her eighty-third birthday, surrounded by her loving family. Born on July 15th, 1943 to Ruth and Leslie Stewart in St. Helens, England, Elisabeth “Lee” Stewart moved and lived with clear-eyed curiosity across countries, decades, and friendships, and yet never (somehow) left anyone behind. Lee created lasting, genuine connections with the people she loved, and she inspired, educated, and empowered her friends, family members, and colleagues along the way.

She lived in several countries and gardened in them all; she potted plants in Liverpool and London, picked fruit in the Greek Isles, rescued ferns in Ottawa, cultivated succulents in San Diego, fertilized in Green Bay, beautified Sister Bay, mulched in Sturgeon Bay, and returned to San Diego for the last almost two decades of her life, where she became the President of the San Diego Floral Association. She was a Master Gardener, accomplished pianist, an EEG technician, a travel agent, the interim-director of a Wisconsin State Park, a Landscape Architect, an author, a historian, a lifelong volunteer in her many local communities, a mother, a wife, a sister, and for sixteen years, a cherished Granny.

She is survived by her first husband (also her third husband) Dr. Jonathan Berger, Emeritus Professor of Geophysics at the University of California-San Diego, and made a family in Wisconsin with her second husband, Dr. Stephen V. Somerville, neurologist. She earned her B.A. in Music at The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay while raising her daughter Sara and son Patrick; during this time, she also played the role of a 19th-century Belgian colonist at Heritage Hill State Park, before eventually returning to the 20th century to become that park’s Interim Director, in 1998. She served as a Board Member of The Wisconsin Historic Society. Her fierce advocacy for women paired well with her lifelong interest in everybody. Finding her at tea-time meant she would likely invite you to join her, no matter who you were.

She earned a Master’s Degree in Historical Landscape Architecture from the University of Wisconsin-Madison after the age of sixty, relocated to San Diego after the age of seventy, and took up the accordion after the age of eighty.

She is survived by her two children, her lifelong companion, Jon, her daughter-in-law, Alexis Jaeger, her sisters Sheila and Mary, and her four grandchildren: Owen (16), Leo (14), Peter (12), and Billie (8).