Laurie See

Laurie E. See died on Tuesday, May 17, 2022 in the Madison, Wisconsin area, where she lived most of her adult life, in the city she loved and called home. She was born in Wausau, Wisconsin on a Thursday, September 8, 1960, the only child of Doris J. (nee Ockerlander) and Robert A. "Bob" See. There she attended public schools, graduating from Wausau East High School in 1978. She studied History as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was a member of Phi Alpha Theta National Honor Society in History, receiving her B.A. with distinction in 1981. As a graduate student, also at UW-Madison, Laurie studied first English and then Linguistics. She was a Foreign Language and Area Studies (Title VI) fellow, awarded her M.A. in Linguistics in 1989, and continued on with work toward the Ph.D. in Linguistics in Syntax, minoring in South Asian Language.

Laurie met Randall L. "Randy" Fuchs while studying at the Helen C. White Undergraduate Library, a.k.a. College Library, during Laurie's freshman, and Randy's sophomore, year at UW-Madison. They were married at the First Universalist Unitarian Church in Wausau, on March 26, 1983, and celebrated their 39th anniversary in 2022.

Laurie was the assistant to the editor for the volume Complex Predicates in South Asian Language, Manindra K. Verma (ed.), Manohar Publishers, 1993. She worked at a number of departments at UW-Madison, including the Linguistics Department, the Van Hise Graduate Reading Room, the German Department, the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, and, for almost a decade, at the UW Law School Library. She produced University Hindi language course materials using early Devanagari script fonts in the MS-DOS and early Windows era; she taught English as a Second Language (ESL) and tutored ESL, Linguistics, and German at the University; she volunteered at the Max Kade Center for German-American Studies. Outside of Madison, Laurie worked at the Wisconsin Valley Library Service and Marathon County Public Library in Wausau, and at all branches of the Charles County Public Library in Southern Maryland, near Washington D.C., where she and her husband lived from 1985 to1987.

For four years, she returned to her hometown of Wausau to care for her father and mother before their deaths in 2012 and 2015, respectively.

In the sixth decade of her life, Laurie embarked on a new career. She became a Wall Street equities trader and investor. She loved it. Undaunted by the eighty-hour work weeks, she regretted only that she hadn't found her calling decades earlier.

Laurie was a musician who began studying piano at age five, and later took up the flute. She was, however, primarily a singer, and as an adult, a true alto who always preferred singing Soprano. She sang with the UW Chorale, summer Concert Choir, and UW Choral Union, singing with the latter over a period of five calendar decades, beginning as a college junior at the age of 18 in 1979, and continuing on as a community member in later years.

Laurie liked traveling, and with her husband, especially enjoyed many trips to Washington, D.C., New York City, and London, cities she loved. Another favorite place was Vermont, where she had visited many times from childhood on. She liked visiting historic sites, some of her favorites being Arlington National Cemetery, the Custis Lee Mansion (Arlington House), Hampton Court Palace, Windsor, and American Civil War battlefields. She also liked visiting art museums.

Laurie adored the theatre. She was an enthusiast for both drama and musicals, and especially loved Shakespearean theatre. She was a fan of both Broadway and regional theatre, and for nearly forty years enjoyed attending American Players Theatre performances in nearby Spring Green. She also loved the movies.

Laurie was curious and wondered about everything; she loved information and learning new things. She was a detail-oriented person and liked doing research. She became interested in family history and taught herself genealogy. She studied German, Latin, Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu, and French. She enjoyed reading novels, poetry, and history, but in recent years spent much of her days reading other non-fiction, especially on economics and the stock market. Laurie also had a particular fondness for cookbooks. She was a foodie who loved going out to dinner with friends, or being invited for a home-cooked meal. She was a great fan of Indian and Nepalese food and was a tea devotee. During her last years she spent much time developing her own cooking skills. Laurie was an exercise enthusiast, who, from 2001 onward, did her cardio workout every single day for over twenty years without fail.

Laurie considered her greatest accomplishment to be her work rescuing cats, helping to save the lives of abandoned, stray, and feral homeless cats, getting them veterinary care, and finding homes for them. She and her husband dubbed their own efforts Odyssey Cat Rescue, and also worked with a grassroots consortium of other local rescuers which ultimately grew into Angel's Wish. Her own cats through the years, Sputzy Felix, Puff, Ranga, Mouschi, Zoey, Maggie, Chole, Miranda, and Ophelia, were the light of her life.

Laurie is survived by her steadfast husband and beloved Aunt, Jeanette O. (See) Santoski. She is also survived by Sohinderjit Singh Sohal, who has been like a son to her, his brother Simranjit, and their family, who have been like family to her. Laurie leaves behind an inner circle of close friends, whom she loved, and a wider circle of many friends. Twenty-six cousins also survive.

In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her grandparents, John Nicholas and Edith Lydia (Waterman) Ockerlander, and Peter Joseph and Othilia Veronica (Schulhauser) See. Also, aunts and uncles, Ruth Mabel (Ockerlander) Melvin; Carol Elizabeth (Ockerlander) and James Earl Reed; Jack N. Ockerlander; James J. "Jim" and Clarabell (Kempen) See; Joseph P. "Joe" and Virgilene (Weinfurter) See; and Clemence "Clem" Santoski. She was also preceded in death by cousin James E. 'Jimmy' Reed, III.

According to her wishes, no services will be held. The entombment was on May 20, 2022, at Forest Hill Cemetery in Madison.

Laurie wishes to thank all the teachers, mentors, doctors, and friends who so enhanced her life, and for all of their support and kindness toward her.

Cress Funeral & Cremation Services

3610 Speedway Road

(608) 238-3434